Freedom Beacon

Congress Puts Funding for Russian Labs in Crosshairs

(FreedomBeacon.com)- A group of Republican lawmakers has called on the Biden administration to halt US funding to several Russian labs, including one that had conducted “horrific and barbaric experiments on 18 cats.”

The US is continuing to fund four experimental laboratories in Russia despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Congresswoman Lisa McClain (R-MI) along with five of her Republican colleagues have written to President Biden requesting that the funding be halted as part of the broader effort to sanction Russia and isolate its economy, especially in light of the news that one lab was experimenting on cats.

Big surprise here, the funding going to these four Russian labs is coming from, you guessed it, the National Institutes of Health.

There are at least 31 labs in Russia and China that receive taxpayer funding through the NIH for animal experiments.

In their letter to President Biden, the Republican lawmakers argue that US taxpayer money should not be permitted to go to US foreign adversaries, “especially ones run by tyrants.” They urge the president to take “swift and decisive action to block” the funding going to these Russian labs.

According to a report earlier this month by the watchdog group The White Coat Waste Project, the Pavlov Institute of Physiology in St. Petersburg received $550,000 last year to conduct tests on cats.

In one experiment, 18 healthy cats were “decerebrated” then made to walk on treadmills. “Decerebration” is severing the brain stem while the animal is still alive. The cats then had electrodes implanted into their spines and were forced to walk on treadmills.

In addition to the cat-torturing Pavlov Institute, American taxpayers are also funding the Gamaleya Research for Epidemiology and Microbiology, the Institute of Cytology and Genetics at the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy Sciences, and the Institute of Cytology of the Russian Academy of Science-Saint Petersburg.

Along with asking President Biden to cut off US taxpayer funding from these Russian labs, Congresswoman McClain is also spearheading legislation that would bar the federal government from funding any research facilities located in countries like China, Russia, Venezuela, and North Korea.

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