Members of Congress exploded Thursday over reports that taxpayer money has paid for experiments using “transgender lab rats,” saying it was time to shut down the government’s animal-testing industry.
At a time when nearly every issue sparks partisan rancor, both Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said something needs to change.
“Why is the federal government spending taxpayer dollars to create transgender animals?” demanded Rep. Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican who called the hearing as chair of the government innovation subcommittee.
“It’s a great question. I wonder why they’re making cats constipated, also. It’s a question that rings around in my head,” said Justin Goodman, senior vice president at the White Coat Waste Project, which exposes animal testing projects.
His group calculated that the National Institutes of Health has spent at least $240 million over the years in grants for “transgender animal experiments,” including $26 million in currently active projects.
“In a lot of these cases, they involve mice, rats, monkeys who are being surgically mutilated and subjected to hormone therapies to mimic female-to-male or male-to-female gender transitions, gender-affirming hormone therapies,” Mr. Goodman said.
Researchers then use them to try to study the effects of gender transitions.
In one $1.1 million experiment, it meant pumping the test animals full of a party drug to see if those who’d undergone the forced testosterone treatments were more easily pushed into an overdose.
As for why experimenters have gravitated toward transgender-type experiments, Mr. Goodman said it was because they chase the latest trends, such as diversity, equity and inclusion.
“In this case, DEI grants were used to fund a lot of this stuff, so people who abuse animals find some kind of excuse to bring in new money, and they’ll switch their research over to something that’s trendy to bring in tax dollars,” he said.
Mr. Goodman said universities skim as much as 40% off each grant as overhead, so they don’t have any incentive to control the experiments.
Paul A. Locke, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said there are possible alternatives to animal testing, but the system is still built around it.
He said the federal government, whose regulatory agencies are often the consumers of the test results as they ponder whether to approve new pharmaceuticals or chemical uses, can make clear that it will accept non-animal test results.
He said the new technologies to replace animal testing need more funding and their results need more validation work. And he said schools can change their training for new students.
“We have to move away from [the concept that] animal testing and animal research are always the gold standard,” he said.
He said he doubts animal testing can be eliminated within a decade, saying it could be 40 years or more before it’s done.
Mr. Goodman said he was more optimistic. He said the federal government could shut off the money it pays for animal testing, which would force the companies to change.
“They’ll figure out another way to do it,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.