NIH under fire for funding dog tests despite vow to cut animal research

Watchdog says NIH approved $12m in new dog studies months after pledge to reduce animal testing

The US National Institute of Health (NIH) is continuing to fund cruel and wasteful" animal experiments involving dogs and cats, despite their recent announcement to reduce animal research.

The NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, announced in April the launch of a new initiative to reduce testing in animals" and prioritise human-based technologies" such as organ-on-a-chip and real-world data, in a new era of innovation" in biomedical research. The move seeks to address longstanding translational failures of animal research to predict human outcomes in diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's, due to differences in anatomy, physiology, lifespan, and disease characteristics".