NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya is facing a firestorm of criticism for the continuation of brutal animal testing experiments by the US government. Director Bhattacharya announced significant steps to reduce animal testing, but there is still reportedly funding going to Fauci-era atrocities. On Wednesday, he was confronted about it by Loomered journalist Charles Downs.
Bhattacharya was for years a health policy expert and a COVID researcher at Stanford University in California.
Dr. Bhattacharya is also a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration.
In October 2020 top international epidemiologists Dr. Martin Kulldorff from Harvard, Dr. Sunetra Gupta from Oxford and Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya from Stanford joined Laura Ingraham on The Ingraham Angle to announce their latest initiative to reopen society and resume life in the West for those who are not vulnerable to the coronavirus.
Downs, who works for Laura Loomer’s news organization Loomered, approached Bhattacharya outside the National Conservatism Conference ahead of his speech.
In the video, Loomered pressed him about how the NIH, under his watch, has reportedly continued Fauci’s barbaric practices.
Bhattacharya responded, “We aren’t doing animal testing.”
When challenged to provide proof, he dismissed the questions, declaring, “I don’t have time for this.”
WATCH:
Wow! Trump-appointed @NIH Director @DrJBhattacharya lied to @LoomerUnleashed and @thecharlesdowns today outside of the NATCON conference as he was walking in to give his speech.
We confronted him about NIH extending Dr. Fauci’s animal testing grants and issuing tens of… pic.twitter.com/dkTAqq78i8
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 3, 2025
Downs was promptly removed from the event by security.
Since Bhattacharya took over, the NIH has doled out a staggering $57 million in new grants for dog, cat, and primate tests, including funding Fauci’s infamous “Monkey Island” experiments and THC experiments on monkeys at Harvard.
In her post with the video, Loomer noted, “President Trump made animal cruelty a FELONY in 2019 via an executive order. Animal cruelty in government labs should also be classified as felony animal cruelty.”
Speaking to The Gateway Pundit, Loomer said, “It’s time for NIH Director Dr. Bhattacharya to come clean about the animal testing taking place under his watch. In collaboration with White Coat Waste, I successfully convinced Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan to cut nearly $70 million in animal testing contracts involving dogs and cats. If the Department of Defense and Navy are able to have moral clarity on the horrors of these inhumane animal tests, why can’t the NIH director?”
Loomer also noted that it’s ironic how Bhattacharya claims there’s no animal testing, given that he and Dr. Nicole Kleinstreuer were on camera last month discussing their efforts to phase it out. His statements continue to contradict themselves.
White Coat Waste Project Vice President Justin Goodman responded to the confrontation in a statement to The Gateway Pundit, saying:
Bhattacharya’s reaction to Laura Loomer is disappointing but not a surprise at this point. Taxpayers are increasingly frustrated that, nearly six months into their tenure, Trump’s NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and his Fauci-loving deputy Nicole Kleinstreuer are still funding Fauci’s animal labs and doling out tax dollars to start up brand new experiments that poison puppies, torture cats and hook monkeys on street drugs while claiming the problem “predates” them and that they are “working tirelessly” to fix it.
They’re lying.
They’re even allowing the labs in their own basement at NIH HQ to continue infecting monkeys with viruses and brain damage and scare primates with toy spiders. They’re the problem now and we’re going to hold them accountable for continuing to sentence pets and primates to death with our tax dollars.
Even HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acknowledged to Loomer that there are active animal testing grants, which were issued under Fauci, and that he is consulting with the White House to see how he can cut them.
EXCLUSIVE: Following @WhiteCoatWaste’s (WCW) new investigation of active Fauci @NIH grants that funded cruel and disgusting experiments to create transgender lab monkeys, HHS Secretary @RobertKennedyJr has exclusively confirmed to me this morning that HHS @HHSGov is working with… https://t.co/PFGonZR5mw
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) August 30, 2025
In July, 11 GOP lawmakers, led by Rep. Paul Gosar, grilled Bhattacharya in a letter demanding an immediate halt to all NIH-funded dog and cat experiments. They highlighted White Coat Waste’s investigations showing animals infested with insects, infected with viruses, and force-fed drugs before being killed, all on the taxpayer’s dime.
Director Bhattacharya reportedly did not meet the deadline to reply.
According to Grok AI — Director Bhattacharya announced significant steps to reduce animal testing, particularly ending all beagle experiments on the NIH campus, as stated in a May 4, 2025, Fox News interview. The NIH has shifted focus toward alternative, human-based research methods like organoids, tissue chips, and computational models, closing its last in-house beagle testing lab. Bhattacharya’s strategy includes prioritizing non-animal methods, citing ethical concerns and the limited translatability of animal data to humans, such as in Alzheimer’s research. However, animal testing continues in some NIH-funded research, as no comprehensive ban has been implemented, and regulatory mandates still require animal data for certain drug development stages.
Speaking to TGP after Wednesday’s incident, Director Bhattacharya told The Gateway Pundit,
“We’ve taken many actions to replace animal use in research with alternative models that are more predictive of human biology when they are available. This is reducing animal use while making NIH research more likely to improve human health. PETA sent me flowers when I adopted the policy!”
We obviously praise Director Bhattacharya for the significant strides he has made in banning this gruesome practice of animal testing in research. However, we believe there is much more to be done to eliminate this controversial research practice.
We look forward to speaking to Director Bhattacharya in the future.
The post WATCH: NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya Gets LOOMERED Over His Extensions of Fauci’s Twisted Animal Testing Grants – Director Bhattacharya Responds to TGP Regarding the Accusations appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.