This article contains images that some readers might find disturbing.

U.S. tax dollars have been funding ongoing experiments at the University of Iowa, where “donated” pet dogs are drugged, locked in mesh cages, and eaten alive by sand flies trapped in capsules strapped to their ears. When the sand flies “feed” on the dogs, they infect them with leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that causes fever, severe weight loss, diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding from the nose, among other symptoms in pups. Even though there are treatments for leishmaniasis, the dogs involved in the experiments have been killed and dissected after the abuse.