![\"Navy](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.animals24-7.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Picsart_25-06-10_11-42-58-841-e1749581011475.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n WASHINGTON D.C.\u2013\u2013<\/strong>U.S. Navy Secretary John C. Phelan on May 27,\u00a0 2025 announced that,\u00a0 \u201cToday it gives me great pleasure to terminate all Department of the Navy testing on cats and dogs, \u00a0ending these inhumane practices and saving taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is long overdue,\u201d\u00a0 Phelan said.<\/p>\n Phelan went on to pledge that he would order the Surgeon General of the Navy \u201cto conduct a comprehensive review of all medical research programs to ensure that they align with ethical guidelines, \u00a0scientific necessity, \u00a0and our core values of integrity and readiness.\u201d<\/p>\n Laura Loomer. (Facebook photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Phelan statement confirmed another of a string of political victories for the right-leaning White Coat Waste Project under the Donald Trump administration,\u00a0 while other animal advocacy groups have so far been about as welcome as fleas and ticks on Capitol Hill,\u00a0 and federally funded animal aid projects,\u00a0 including Animal Welfare Act law enforcement,\u00a0 have been cut to the brink of extinction.<\/p>\n White Coat Waste Project founder Anthony Bellotti,\u00a0 46,\u00a0 a former Republican campaign strategist,\u00a0 enlisted publicity support from The Gateway Pundit<\/em>,\u00a0 identified by Wikipedia as a \u201cfar-right fake news website,\u00a0 known for publishing falsehoods, \u00a0hoaxes,\u00a0 and conspiracy theories,\u201d\u00a0 and Laura Loomer,\u00a0 identified as a \u201cfar-right political activist, \u00a0conspiracy theorist, \u00a0and internet personality,\u201d\u00a0 who operates a webcast called Loomer Unleashed<\/em>.<\/p>\n One might more charitably describe both The Gateway Pundit <\/em>and Loomer Unleashed<\/em> as the online era equivalent of the \u201csupermarket tabloid\u201d newspapers extensively enlisted in the early years of the late 20th century animal rights movement by right-wing \u201cscientific antivivisectionist\u201d author\/activist Hans Ruesch (1913-2007).<\/p>\n Hans Ruesch with cat.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ruesch built an international following rivaling People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA] at peak,\u00a0 but achieved no major political victories over cruel experiments.\u00a0 His string of organizations disintegrated amid internal feuding and growing activist recognition that his \u201cscientific\u201d claims rested on the centuries old contention that humans,\u00a0 created by God,\u00a0 are too unlike animals for animal experimentation to yield valid results.<\/p>\n This focal contention clashed with growing scientific and public recognition through DNA research that humans are more closely kin to animals in sentience and evolutionary history than had previously been imagined,\u00a0 leading to the belief now dominant among animal advocates that our close relationship with animals makes cruel experiments inherently unethical.<\/p>\n Beagle,\u00a0 rat,\u00a0 frequent White Coat Waste target Anthony Fauci, & Justin Goodman. (Beth Clifton collage) <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The underlying philosophy of the White Coat Waste Project combines elements of both the Ruesch and PETA approaches:\u00a0 animal experiments are cruel,\u00a0 emphasizing bizarre experiments on cats,\u00a0 dogs,\u00a0 and sometimes monkeys,\u00a0 and a waste of money,\u00a0 since they seldom produce new information of value.<\/p>\n The White Coat Waste Project style is mostly a PETA knockoff,\u00a0 reflecting that White Coat Waste senior vice president of advocacy and public policy Justin Goodman previously was a PETA investigator.<\/p>\n But while PETA supporters tend to lean left,\u00a0 the White Coat Waste Project leans decidedly Trumpist right.<\/p>\n The rhetoric from both PETA and White Coat Waste relies heavily on emotive buzz words.<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled,\u201d\u00a0 said Bellotti, \u00a0\u201cthat 10 days after the Trump Department of Defense canceled cruel cat tests exposed by White Coat Waste, \u00a0the U.S. Navy is now cutting all wasteful experiments on dogs and cats following our investigations and campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n (See Enlisting Trump \u201cblogosphere,\u201d White Coat Waste kills cruel cat experiments<\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cTaxpayers shouldn\u2019t be forced to pay for pet abuse in Navy-funded labs,\u201d\u00a0 Bellotti continued, \u00a0\u201cand now, \u00a0thanks to a White Coat Waste campaign, \u00a0including powerful advocacy from Elon Musk,\u00a0 Laura Loomer, \u00a0Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC), \u00a0military veterans, \u00a0and others, \u00a0they won\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n The target audience is unlikely to care that the correctly identified U.S. Navy is under the U.S. Department of Defense,\u00a0 not the \u201cTrump Department of Defense,\u201d\u00a0 nor that the purpose-bred cats used in experiments are almost as many generations away from any who ever were pets as lab rats are from sewer rats\u2013\u2013not that this makes any difference to either species in their capacity to suffer.<\/p>\n Anthony Bellotti and Delilah.<\/strong><\/em> Bellotti struck a more personal note in a Facebook posting introducing his own cat Delilah,\u00a0 who \u201cBefore she had a name, \u00a0had a number,\u201d\u00a0 and was previously \u201clocked inside the largest cat experimentation lab in the U.S. government,\u201d\u00a0 where \u201cover 5,000 cats were slaughtered and incinerated,\u201d\u00a0 after being \u201cForce-fed dog and cat meat in cannibalism tests,\u201d\u00a0 at cost to taxpayers of $22.5 million.<\/p>\n \u201cThe USDA\u2019s notorious \u2018kitten slaughterhouse\u2019 bred, \u00a0killed, \u00a0and burned kittens in a secretive federal facility \u2014 just 30 minutes from the White House,\u201d\u00a0 Bellotti continued.<\/p>\n \u201cDelilah was a breeder in that lab.\u00a0 Twenty-two of her kittens were taken from her and killed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhite Coat Waste uncovered how the feds imported dog and cat meat from Chinese wet markets\u2014flown in their personal luggage.<\/p>\n \u201cBut for 40 years no animal rights group shut down a single federal feline lab.\u201d<\/p>\n Henry Spira & friend.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This appears to be true,\u00a0 even though the beginning of modern animal rights activism is usually dated to the success of Henry Spira (1927-1998) in ending federally funded sex experiments on cats at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 1976.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile legacy groups ran naked, \u00a0chased celebrities, \u00a0and threw red paint,\u201d\u00a0 Bellotti charged,\u00a0 \u201cthe cats kept suffering.\u00a0 Then White Coat Waste stepped in,\u201d\u00a0 and essentially using Spira\u2019s long neglected strategic blueprint,\u00a0 \u201claunched an investigation into Delilah\u2019s lab,\u00a0 exposed it to CNN,\u00a0 the Washington Post<\/em>, \u00a0NBC, \u00a0and more,\u00a0 built a rare bipartisan coalition in Congress to cut the tax money,\u201d\u00a0 and eventually closed the laboratory,\u00a0 after which Bellotti adopted Delilah.<\/p>\n \u201cDelilah\u2019s lab was just the beginning,\u201d\u00a0 Bellotti boasted.\u00a0 \u201cHer rescue launched an unprecedented winning streak that laid waste to every cat lab at the Department of Veterans Affairs,\u201d\u00a0 citing closures of experiments and facilities in Los Angeles and Cleveland in 2021, \u00a0Louisville in 2022,\u201d\u00a0 and in Cleveland again in 2024.<\/p>\n Ingrid Newkirk with dog cat rat and boy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But that raises another question.<\/p>\n Just cancelling an experiment,\u00a0 persuading a researcher to use a different species,\u00a0 or even closing a laboratory seldom actually completes the job of preventing animal use in experimentation.<\/p>\n Completing the job means the laboratory itself has to be demolished or repurposed to do something other than animal research.<\/p>\n Otherwise, \u00a0so long as it remains standing and the host university or corporation is paying the maintenance costs, \u00a0it will usually be reused for more animal experiments of some kind,\u00a0 perhaps on rats and mice rather than cats,\u00a0 beagles,\u00a0 or monkeys,\u00a0 but as PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk said in 1986,\u00a0 \u201cIn their capacity to suffer,\u00a0 a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Will the facilities used in the cancelled Navy cat and dog experiments be used for similar experiments on other animals?<\/p>\n Responded Bellotti,\u00a0 \u201cMany of these labs,\u00a0buildings, and infrastructure\u00a0are outright funded or subsidized by tax money \u2013 and thus vulnerable targets for budget cuts. \u00a0We agree that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our experience, destroying grants and departments is still\u00a0generally\u00a0the most effective way to end abuse.<\/p>\n Cases in point,\u00a0 Bellotti mentioned,\u00a0 include \u201cCat testing at the USDA \u2013 these experiments were taxpayer-funded for nearly 50 years,\u00a0 at USDA and pre-USDA by the same vivisector. \u00a0But it didn\u2019t come back after White Coat Waste.\u201d<\/p>\n (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Also,\u00a0 Bellotti continued,\u00a0 \u201cCat and dog experimentation at the Department of Veterans Affairs.\u00a0 That was going on since at least the Dwight Eisenhower administration.\u00a0 Not after we cleaned it out.<\/p>\n \u201cMonkey experiments at the Food & Drug Administration\u2019s National Center for Toxicological Research was at an all-time high,\u201d\u00a0 Bellotti said, \u00a0\u201cbefore White Coat Waste. \u00a0It\u2019s been zeroed out at NCTR for a few years now.\u201d<\/p>\n But what became of the facilities and equipment?<\/p>\n Generations of activist \u201cvictories\u201d over cruel experiments conducted by a variety of different government agencies,\u00a0 departments,\u00a0 and private companies,\u00a0 \u00a0for example,\u00a0 contributed to the evolution of the Hazleton Laboratories beagle kennels in Cumberland, \u00a0Virginia,\u00a0 built in 1961 and already notorious before the passage of the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act in 1966,\u00a0 into the later notorious Covance kennels,\u00a0 \u00a0 a target of protest for more than 20 years,\u00a0 then into the LabCorp kennels,\u00a0 and finally into the Envigo kennels,\u00a0 sensationally notorious in 2023-2024.<\/p>\nWhite Coat Waste Project \u201clays waste\u201d to cat experiments,\u00a0 but are buildings & equipment still in use on other species?<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nEnlisted tabloids<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRuesch momentum disintegrated<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWhite Coat Waste vs. PETA<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cTrump\u201d department & \u201cpet abuse\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
(White Coat Waste photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nDelilah the cat<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cLegacy groups ran naked\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cA rat is a pig is a dog is a boy\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cTargets for budget cuts\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nFacilities & equipment<\/h2>\n