By Jorge Casuso

October 25, 2021 -- U.S. Representative Ted Lieu, whose district includes Santa Monica, is among two dozen lawmakers who expressed "grave concerns" that the health agency headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci has been funding "brutal" experiments on puppies.

In the bipartisan letter Thursday, spearheaded by Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, the lawmakers said they had “grave concerns about reports of costly, cruel, and unnecessary taxpayer-funded experiments on dogs.”

Dogs used in taxpayer-funder experiment (Courtesy White Coat Waste Project)

The letter calls on Fauci, who directs the the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to end the testing on puppies outlined in a recent report from the non-profit White Coat Waste Project (WCW).

The report -- based on documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request -- showed NIAID used taxpayer dollars to bankroll experiments the group contends amounts to animal torture.

"Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive,” WCW said.

“They also locked beagles alone in cages in the desert overnight for nine consecutive nights to use them as bait to attract infectious sand flies.”

The letter to Fauci, which was also addressed to President Biden, demands that the President's chief medical adviser share information regarding tests commissioned by NIAID that " involved injecting and force-feeding the puppies an experimental drug for several weeks, before killing and dissecting them.”

The lawmakers said they were particularly concerned that the invoice to NIAID included a line item for cordectomies performed on the six- to eight-month-old dogs to keep them quiet during the experiments.

"As you are likely aware, a cordectomy, also known as 'devocalization,' involves splitting a dog's vocal cords in order to prevent them from barking, howling, or crying," the letter said.

“This cruel procedure -- which is opposed with rare exceptions by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Animal Hospital Association, and others -- seems to have been performed so that experimenters would not have to listen to the pained cries of the beagle puppies.

"This is a reprehensible misuse of taxpayer funds,” the letter said.

After the WCW report was released, #ArrestFauci began trending on Twitter amid growing calls to oust the nation's top infectious disease official.

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) on Sunday released a statement demanding that Biden "designate an NIH director who chooses human-relevant research."

The statement did not mention Fauci.

WCW noted its report marked the fourth time since 2016 that the group has documented experiments funded by Fauci's agency that involved the cruel abuse of dogs.

The non-profit project first gained attention in April 2020 when it revealed Fauci's agency had provided funding for "gain of function" research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The mainstream press and social media censored WCW's findings, as well as any subsequent reports indicating the Wuhan lab may have been the source of the pandemic that has killed nearly 5 million people.

In recent months, as more information emerged during a Congressional investigation into the virus' origins, the once discredited "conspiracy" theory has gained credibility.