National Institutes Of Health Spent $2.3 Million To Inject Beagles With Cocaine

By Adam Andrzejewski for RealClearPolicy

Sadly, the cruel experiments on innocent animals on your dime show no signs of stopping. Previously, the National Institutes of Health funded an experiment where beagles were eaten alive by flies. Now, the White Coat Waste Project has uncovered a new experiment, costing $2.3 million taxpayer dollars, involving injecting beagles with cocaine.

According to the investigation, seven six-month-old beagle puppies were trained to wear a specially designed jacket to facilitate the injection of cocaine into them. The report states “puppies were dosed with cocaine again and again and again for months, along with an ‘experimental compound,’ to see how the two drugs interacted.”

The researchers also surgically implanted a telemetry unit to monitor their vital signals.

After the experiment was finished, the beagles were either killed or recycled to be used in other experiments, a practice that is specifically frowned upon ethically in scientific experiments.

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A paper on ethics of animal testing published by the NIH themselves writes that researchers should, “Prevent unacceptable study end-points: death as an end-point is often ethically unacceptable and should be fully justified. When death cannot be avoided, the procedures must be designed to result in the deaths of as few animals as possible”, as well as “Avoid repeated use of animals in experiments: any animals should not be used in more than one experiment, either in the same or different projects, without the express approval of the IACUC.”

What was the purpose of this experiment? The documents released by the White Coat Waste Project claim that it was to evaluate the cardiovascular effects of cocaine and another substance, whose name is not released as it is proprietary information.

These cruel experiments are often necessary because of the archaic live animal testing requirements the FDA still requires to gain approval for drugs. Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) have introduced bipartisan legislation to eliminate mandatory testing on animals.

Syndicated with permission from Real Clear Wire.

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