Records Reveal Millions of U.S. Taxpayer Dollars Are Being Sent to a Swedish Lab for Gruesome Animal Experiments
Records obtained by PETA have revealed shocking information about truly heinous animal experiments taking place in Sweden, paid for by U.S. taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Since 2004, a researcher named Tatiana Deliagina at Sweden’s acclaimed Karolinska Institute has received nearly $4 million from the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to study human posture and how humans stand upright. Yet these tests are performed on rabbits—animals who do not stand upright—meaning they are subjected to having their spines crushed for experiments that are scientifically pointless from the start.
Records show that 127 rabbits were tortured by Deliagina between 2021 and 2025 alone, meaning that over the course of her 20-year career she has likely subjected thousands of rabbits to the same cruel procedures. Her experiments include spinal crush injuries, brain and spinal injections, electrodes implanted into muscles, and in some cases the surgical disconnection of the brain from the spinal cord. Many of the rabbits were left without proper veterinary care, and some were left to scream in agony for weeks before finally being euthanized.
These grisly experiments are just one example of the countless NIH-funded animal abuses happening overseas—exactly why the CARGO Act of 2025 (Cease Animal Research Grants Overseas Act) is so urgently needed. According to PETA, the NIH sent more than $2.2 billion to researchers in 45 countries between 2011 and 2021 for experiments on animals including cats, dogs, primates, and other species. These studies have no place being funded with U.S. taxpayer money, especially as American public support for animal research continues to decline.
Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-NV-01), a member of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus who reintroduced the CARGO Act alongside Congressman Troy Nehls (R-TX-22), explained the obvious need for reform: “NIH is moving away from cruel animal experimentation here at home, so turning off the taxpayer money spigot to laboratories abroad makes sense. It is crucial we pass the CARGO Act to end animal suffering worldwide and steward taxpayer dollars toward more reliable non-animal research methods.”
The shift away from animal torture in U.S. labs helped end the long-running, deeply disturbing experiments conducted by Harvard’s notoriously sadistic scientist Margaret Livingstone, who for years was bankrolled by the federal government to perform the same abusive tests on mothers and infant monkeys with zero meaningful contribution to human health. The CARGO Act could finally put a stop to another such career—Sweden’s Tatiana Deliagina, who has likewise built her professional life on repetitive, unjustifiable cruelty.
You can do your part to support the CARGO Act by urging your member of Congress to cosponsor this important legislation. Now that the House of Representatives is back in session, the time to push this bill forward is right now. You can also help keep the momentum going by sharing this update with your network and letting them know why we need the CARGO Act today.