The Pentagon is spending $57 million in taxpayer money on animal experiments, including more than $21 million funneled to foreign laboratories in Canada, Australia, Israel, and Chile over the last seven years. The science is outdated. The cruelty is real. And American taxpayers are footing the bill.

At McGill University in Canada, more than $5.8 million in Pentagon funding is going toward blinding rats by damaging their optic nerves. At the University of British Columbia, $9.4 million is being used to inflict paralyzing spinal cord injuries on mini-pigs and rats. In Australia, a Pentagon-funded lab plunges rats into near-boiling water to inflict third-degree burns across at least 30 percent of their bodies, then cuts out half their livers to induce internal bleeding and keeps them alive and suffering for 24 hours before killing them.

These experiments are not just cruel. They are wasteful. Animal models are increasingly recognized as poor predictors of human outcomes, and the U.S. defense budget is not a research grant program for foreign universities. As PETA Vice President Shalin Gala stated, these experiments are "lining foreign pockets" while offering "no benefit to human health."

Better tools exist. Non-animal research methods, including organ-on-a-chip technology, computer modeling, and human cell-based testing, are producing more reliable results at lower cost. The Pentagon should be leading on scientific modernization, not subsidizing experiments that were considered cutting-edge decades ago.

We are calling on Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense to immediately cut funding for foreign animal laboratory experiments, launch a full audit of all Pentagon-funded animal research, and commit to a transition toward modern, animal-free methods.

This is about fiscal responsibility. It is about ending unnecessary cruelty. And it is about investing in science that actually works.