Dog Statue Presentation on Hold as Thousands Sign Petition Calling on NIH to Axe Funding for Experiments

For Immediate Release:
September 3, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

PETA has been vocal in its support for National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, but the agency may now be in the doghouse—and PETA is postponing a planned presentation of a sculpture of a dog to him. The unique artwork was created from the signatures of tens of thousands of Americans, all calling on the agency to cut public funds to studies on animals, including seven horrific experiments with no known scientific merit, preparatory to switching to state-of-the-art research methods across the board.

In a letter sent today, PETA reminds Dr. Bhattacharya that NIH pledged to move away from experiments that have been going on for decades involving immeasurable suffering and privation for primates, dogs, mice, and more and urging him, at the least, to cut grants to seven experimenters who have already received millions, including enormous amounts in 2025:

• Wake Forest University – $474,347to addict monkeys to cocaine, alcohol, nicotine, and more, and forcing them to choose between drugs or food.
• Michigan State University – $547,003 to inject menstrual tissues in the abdomen of baboons and mice, purportedly to study endometriosis, which neither species naturally experiences.
• University of Maryland, Baltimore – $548,544 to create hot flashes in monkeys by taking out their ovaries.
• University of Houston – $740,658to force newborn monkeys to wear helmets that plunge them into darkness and distort their vision, and subject them to multiple invasive surgeries, implanting a post into the monkeys’ skulls, inserting electrodes into their brains, and affixing coils directly onto the outer white surface of the animals’ eyes.
• University of Georgia – $1,441,664 to force a genetically engineered probiotic into mice and dogs who are supposed to “model” Alzheimer’s disease—a disease that neither dogs nor mice suffer from.
• Washington University – $632,703 to cut into dogs’ necks, deliberately paralyze part of their voice boxes, subject them to months of invasive tests, and then kill them to dissect their throat tissues.
• Colorado Research Partners, LLC – $1,151,963 to force-feed dogs experimental drugs supposedly to treat alcohol misuse in humans for weeks at a time, draw their blood repeatedly, and then kill them and dissect their organs.

“Our dog statue gift is on hold while we see if Dr. Bhattacharya can get NIH out of the doghouse,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is ready to cheer NIH on for closing tax draining, pork-barrel laboratories—and it can start with seven of the very worst.”

PETA is also appealing directly to Dr. Bhattacharya this afternoon at the National Conservatism Conference. A PETA supporter dressed as Beamish, a monkey tormented in NIH experiments, and a giant inflatable “dinosaur” will urge a cut to the “Jurassic-sized waste” of the federally funded laboratories:

Where: National Conservatism Conference, Westin DC Downtown, 999 Ninth Street Northwest, Washington

When: Wednesday, September 3, 1:30 p.m.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.