In a transfer that’s each shameless and predictable, the deceptively named Folks for the Moral Therapy of Animals (PETA) is doing the media rounds pretending to be heroes of the NIH beagle lab shutdown, when in actuality they weren’t concerned and killed extra cats and canines simply final yr than the now shuttered lab did in 40 years.
The true MVP in saving these animals was the White Coat Waste Undertaking (WCW), a scrappy taxpayer watchdog with about six % of PETA’s finances. Since 2016, the bipartisan group has been relentlessly preventing to shut down the Nationwide Institutes of Well being’s merciless canine labs.
BeagleGate timeline:
– Nov ’16: WCW uncovers NIH lab, begins marketing campaign
– Sep ’21: @PETA sues NIH (focus: )
– PETA go well with point out NIH
– Apr ’25: @LauraLoomer
– Could ’25: NIH closed
– labs? Nonetheless open
– Could ‘25: PETA reveals as much as declare credit score— White Coat Waste (@WhiteCoatWaste) May 7, 2025
As WCW was doing actual work, PETA was gathering COVID bailout money and racking up a physique rely of cats and canines, which made the NIH’s four-decade dying tally seem like beginner hour.
The NIH’s beagle lab, a home of horrors the place these animals have been subjected to surprising experiments since 1986, was shuttered in Could 2025 beneath the Trump administration’s NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya. Over the past 40 years, 2,133 beagles had been tortured and killed by the researchers there.
NIH Director Dr. J. Bhattacharya says the company ended beagle testing on its campus, and that PETA even despatched him flowers in response.pic.twitter.com/JxBvduTM76
— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) May 5, 2025
By means of relentless Freedom of Data Act requests, lawsuits, and lobbying, WCW uncovered details about 41 beagles killed from 2021 to 2022 and used this info to rally bipartisan assist to defund the lab.
Regardless of having nothing to do with this large win for animals, PETA started a media victory lap that was a masterclass in gaslighting. The group rapidly issued a press launch virtually claiming they single-handedly freed the beagles — and despatched flowers and a thanks be aware to Dr. Bhattacharya. Their precise contribution? A 2021 lawsuit towards the NIH that, shock, didn’t even point out the beagle lab.
As a substitute, the group had solely targeted on the mouse experiments, ignoring the struggling of the pups.
That didn’t cease these shameless grifters from claiming of their press release that “PETA first publicly uncovered NIH’s beagle sepsis experiment in 2020.” The experiments, nonetheless, had been uncovered by WCW in 2016. If PETA’s mission was really saving animals as an alternative of gathering cash and energy, why not have a good time the group doing essentially the most to finish the struggling and assist construct them up?
Whereas PETA poses for the cameras and postures as nice defenders of animals, their shelter in Norfolk, Virginia, is a dying manufacturing facility that may even make Dr. Anthony Fauci blush.
In response to the Virginia Division of Agriculture and Shopper Providers (VDACS), PETA’s Neighborhood Animal Undertaking took in 3,117 canines and cats in 2023 and euthanized 2,471 of them, a 79% kill fee. In 2024, petakillsanimals.com estimates PETA killed 2,174 canines and cats, outpacing the NIH’s 2,133 beagle deaths over 4 a long time in only one yr.
PETA’s excuse for the mass slaughter? They absorb “unadoptable” animals which can be aggressive, sick, or aged and supply free euthanasia to homeowners who can’t afford it.
Sadly, court docket circumstances inform a darker story.
In 2007, two PETA staff had been tried for animal cruelty in North Carolina after dumping lifeless canines and cats in a dumpster, together with animals they claimed had been “lovely” and “good.” In 2017, PETA paid $49,000 to a household after euthanizing their 9-year-old daughter’s chihuahua, Maya. Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president, has overtly known as pet possession “an abysmal scenario” and stated, “If folks need toys, they need to purchase inanimate objects.” She additionally advocates for the entire eradication of sure species, most notably pitbulls.
“If folks need toys, they need to purchase inanimate objects. If they need companionship, they need to search it with their very own form,” PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has stated. “In the long run, I believe it could be pretty if we stopped this complete notion of pets altogether.”
Paperwork uncovered by PETAKillsAnimals.com indicated that following an inspection of the PETA services, the Commonwealth of Virginia was so shocked by the variety of animals that they kill annually that the state inspector tried to revoke their license to function a shelter.
Dr. Daniel Kovich, the investigator with the VDACS who performed the inspection of PETA’s animal shelter at its Virginia headquarters in July 2010, decided that “the ability doesn’t comprise ample animal enclosures to routinely home the variety of animals yearly reported as taken into custody.”
It seems that it is because PETA has by no means supposed to maintain animals which can be surrendered to them.
“After reviewing two months price of data, Kovich discovered that 245 of the 290 animals–84 %–that PETA took into custody had been killed inside 24 hours. Solely 17 had been reported as adopted or in foster properties. Kovich famous that PETA’s shelter didn’t meet PETA’s personal printed tips for working a humane animal shelter,” PETA Kills Animals studies.
In 2021, The Gateway Pundit revealed photos of PETA’s kill room and freezer that had been supplied by a whistleblower who beforehand labored with the group.
FDA’s Move to Phase Out Animal Testing Hailed as Victory for White Coat Waste Project
The group’s egregious nonsense doesn’t cease there. Although they’re kissing as much as the administration now, PETA has spent the previous few years attacking Trump to pander to potential liberal donors.
Their X posts and blogs from 2021–2024 are plagued by anti-Trump rhetoric, from mocking his environmental insurance policies to slamming his administration’s animal testing stance, utterly ignoring that Trump had made many strikes to curb animal analysis throughout his first time period.
Actually, in 2019, throughout his first time period, the Trump administration closed the federal government’s largest cat lab. Nonetheless, PETA claimed in a now-deleted tweet that “Sadly, Trump did nothing to cease animal experimentation. Humorous, since Trump did greater than their group has!
WCW is the one animal advocacy group to close down any authorities primate lab in almost a decade, any authorities canine testing labs in virtually 20 years, and any authorities cat lab within the final 40 years.
Simply yesterday, the Division of Protection confirmed the cancellation of a $10 million contract to shove marbles up the anuses of cats and electroshock them, after Laura Loomer and White Coat Waste uncovered the merciless experiments.
In April, the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) introduced plans to section out animal testing necessities, beginning with monoclonal antibodies and increasing to different medicine after a protracted stress marketing campaign from WCW.
FDA’s Move to Phase Out Animal Testing Hailed as Victory for White Coat Waste Project
The Trump administration’s Environmental Safety Company (EPA) has additionally pledged to eradicate animal testing, reinstating a plan initially launched throughout President Trump’s first time period and squashed by Joe Biden.
Earlier this week, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins confirmed the division will finish not less than a few of its primate testing earlier than the 2026 deadline set by Congress. Since 2016, WCW had labored to show how the VA was giving puppies coronary heart assaults, injecting monkeys with angel mud, crippling kittens, drilling into cat’s skulls, and rather more.
Now, PETA is all of the sudden wanting to “assist” rehome the NIH’s surviving beagles, “relying on their situation.” Why the newfound curiosity? Maybe as a result of it’s a PR win, not like their common enterprise of euthanizing animals. If PETA’s observe file is any information, these beagles could be higher off steering away from Norfolk.
PETA’s try and hog the highlight for the NIH beagle lab shutdown is a traditional case of stolen valor. White Coat Waste Undertaking did the heavy lifting—exposing the lab, rallying lawmakers, and mobilizing public outrage—whereas PETA was preoccupied with their very own slaughterhouse and political point-scoring.
The numbers don’t lie: PETA killed 2,174 canines and cats in 2024 alone, dwarfing the NIH’s 2,133 beagle deaths over 40 years. If PETA needs to take credit score for something, it’s their unmatched effectivity in turning shelters into morgues. As for the beagles? They’re free, no due to PETA’s late-to-the-party flowers.
