Watchdog group White Coat Waste reports that the funding resumes Russian animal testing collaborations that the Biden administration cut off in 2022. The current project involves breeding and killing foxes in Siberia to study tameness before shipping samples to Illinois. Neither the NIH nor the Department of Health and Human Services has responded to requests for comment.
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
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NIH Gives $780K to Russian Lab Linked to Plague Leak Despite 2022 Ban
US Politics13 days ago
The National Institutes of Health awarded two grants totaling $779,689 to the University of Illinois for fox research conducted in partnership with Russia's state-run Institute of Cytology and Genetics (ICG). The latest of these grants was renewed in September 2026 under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The ICG has previously collaborated on plague research with the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute, a facility currently facing scrutiny after a lab worker's death sparked concerns of a biological leak and cover-up.
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