The
agency's inspector general will review the testing program after questions
about whether it was properly authorized. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert
Wilkie has said that experiments on dogs sometimes involve "critical
research" on traumatic spinal cord injuries to veterans.
The
Department of Veteran Affairs' inspector general is reviewing whether the
agency flouted regulations on dog experimentation, as a new bill was introduced
to outlaw the often-gruesome testing.
In
a letter to a bipartisan group of lawmakers, VA Inspector General Michael
Missal said his office will probe whether nine ongoing dog studies were being
carried out in violation of a law signed by President Donald Trump last year.
That law said the VA secretary had to sign off on any such procedures, which
animal advocates and members of Congress say are painful and unnecessary. The
IG's letter was first reported by Stars and Stripes.
"We
welcome the oversight from the inspector general," VA press secretary Curt
Cashour said.
The
VA maintains former Secretary David Shulkin verbally signed off on the
experiments on the day he was fired by the president, but Shulkin has denied
that claim. He told USA Today in November that he "wasn't asked, nor did I
request a review for an approval" of the dog experiments.
In
a letter last year to Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., current Secretary Robert Wilkie
said the experiments include "critical research to investigate how to
restore the ability of Veterans with traumatic spinal cord injuries to breathe
properly and avoid repeated bouts of pneumonia and early death."
The
current experiments include forced heart attack experiments at a veterans'
center in Richmond, Virginia, and tests involving damaging dogs' spinal cords
and collapsing their lungs in Cleveland in an effort to see how their cough
reflexes respond to electrode treatments, according to the White Coat Waste
Project, an animal advocacy group. A past VA experiment involved drilling into
live dogs' skulls.
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