BETHESDA, Md., March 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Funding for the country's oldest taxpayer-supported dog experiments is set to expire at the end of this month, and two nonprofit groups are urging the National Institutes of Health not to throw good money after bad. The Wilberforce Institute and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine point out that heart failure experiments conducted since 1991 at Wayne State University in Detroit have failed to benefit patients. The project involves cutting into dogs' chests, implanting devices in and around their arteries, and stabbing wires into the animals' hearts. NIH has spent about $15 million on the experiments.

In a letter sent today, the groups urged Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya to deny continued funding to Wayne State. Wilberforce is a pro-liberty, anti-cruelty think tank founded in 2024 by U.S. Army veteran Liam Gray. The Physicians Committee is a medical ethics group that first brought the dog experiments to light.

Stories of dogs killed by Wayne State have caused concern in Michigan for years. A Dalmatian mix known as Queenie died at Wayne State in 2010, and now a pair of bills known as Queenie's Law—to prohibit painful dog experiments at public institutions—are moving through the state legislature. More recently, public records obtained by the Physicians Committee reveal a beagle known only as Dog 3003 died in August 2024 after a surgical procedure near his spine caused "rigid paralysis" and he was crying in pain.

Support to end the Wayne State experiments has come from powerful allies. NFL players Sam LaPorta and Brock Wright of the Detroit Lions have publicly endorsed Queenie's Law. And in February, 11 Michigan state legislators—eight Republicans and three Democrats—wrote to RFK Jr. and NIH to request an end to the experiments.

The legislators wrote that "botched surgeries have led to many dogs suffering such extreme internal injuries that their chest cavities fill with blood, making it painfully difficult to breathe and requiring university staff to put them out of their misery. Other dogs are found dead in their cages." The Physicians Committee estimates that the experiments have killed more than 300 dogs.

"The Trump Administration has done so much for animals in labs, and here's an opportunity to do more," said Gray, executive director of Wilberforce. "The Wayne State dog experiments are nothing but 35 years of waste and suffering."

The Physicians Committee points out the dog experiments, despite their duration, have been a scientific failure.

"Not a single patient is better off because of Wayne State's painful, deadly experiments," said Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy for the Physicians Committee. "We hope Secretary Kennedy and NIH realize that and cut off the funding."

The Physicians Committee points out that human-relevant methods like trials involving patients, population studies, 3D organoids, and the use of donated human hearts are producing results for patients. In 2015, the Texas Heart Institute stopped using dogs altogether.

Contact: Liam Gray, 804-217-2917, liam@wilberforce.institute 
Ryan Merkley, 202-527-7336, rmerkley@pcrm.org

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SOURCE Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine