NIH Approved $1.7M in New and Extended Cat Experiments Despite Pledge to Phase Them Out, Watchdog Says

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued more than $1.7 million in new and extended grants for experiments involving cats since July, according to documents released by the watchdog group White Coat Waste (WCW). The awards come after senior NIH officials publicly said the agency is working to move away from research using cats and dogs.

What the documents show

WCW’s documents identify multiple recent awards and extensions. Among the new grants are:

• $486,000 for a study of blood-flow changes in the brain after stroke. The project description says about 60 kittens will undergo skull removal, viral injections to the brain, induced paralysis and stroke, brain imaging, and ultimately euthanasia.
• $439,000 for early-stage research on a gene therapy for glaucoma. The study reportedly uses three-month-old "mutant" kittens bred to develop glaucoma; animals are injected in the eye with viral vectors, restrained for examinations, and then euthanized so their eyes can be dissected.

WCW also says the NIH has extended seven existing cat studies since July, providing nearly $572,000 in additional funding. Lifetime funding for those projects now totals approximately $38 million.

Examples of extended work

Extended studies cited in the documents include an investigation of limb coordination after spinal injury in which 30 cats reportedly have their spinal cords severed and are made to walk on treadmills to assess recovery and coordination. Another extended project is a proof-of-concept gene therapy trial using kittens bred with a neurological disorder; affected animals receive experimental injections into spinal fluid and are euthanized once the disease progresses to a severe stage.

Officials, advocates and policy context

In July, NIH acting deputy director Dr. Nicole Kleinstreuer told a podcast with NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya that she believed the agency should not conduct research on dogs or cats and that the NIH was "working tirelessly behind the scenes" to phase out such projects. At the same time she said the agency was constrained by existing grant obligations.

WCW disputes the claim that the NIH is legally required to continue existing grants and cites NIH policy stating there is "no legal obligation to provide funding beyond the ending date of the current budget period." WCW is urging the NIH to cancel existing cat-testing grants and bar new awards involving cats.

Justin Goodman, senior vice-president of WCW, called on political leaders to intervene and said the NIH had been misleading the public. Representative Dina Titus, a longtime critic of cat and dog testing, has co-sponsored legislation (the PAAW Act) that would prohibit NIH-funded research causing "significant pain or distress" to dogs or cats.

An NIH spokesperson said Dr. Kleinstreuer was expressing her personal perspective and that the agency is "conducting a comprehensive review of the dog and cat research portfolio to identify areas where we can responsibly transition away from these models," adding that recent policy updates encourage greater use of non-animal alternatives.

Broader trend away from animal models

The debate sits within a broader shift in U.S. biomedical policy. The NIH has said it will prioritize human-based research methods where appropriate, and new approaches such as organ-on-a-chip systems, computer modelling and human data have been promoted as potentially more predictive of human outcomes. The 2022 FDA Modernization Act 2.0 removed a legal requirement for animal testing before human trials, and the FDA has announced phase-outs of animal testing for certain drug categories.

Federal agencies have taken various steps in recent months: the Department of Veterans Affairs was directed by Congress to end research on dogs, cats and primates by 2026 and later reported it had stopped cat testing; the U.S. Navy paused cat and dog research after WCW disclosures about certain experiments; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has instructed scientists to phase out some monkey studies.

Advocacy groups say these developments show a path away from some types of animal research, while some scientific organizations argue that animal studies remain essential in many areas of biomedical research because full replacements do not yet exist.

Sources: Documents released by White Coat Waste; statements from NIH officials and WCW representatives; public legislative and agency actions affecting animal research policy.