In yet another major victory for fiscal sanity and animal welfare under President Trump, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has officially shut down its primate laboratories that were imprisoning and experimenting on hundreds of monkeys on the taxpayer dime.
The CDC confirmed the shutdown today, and Science magazine was the first to report it.
The decisive action comes directly from aggressive advocacy and behind-the-scenes work by the White Coat Waste Project (WCW), a watchdog group that has been partnering with the Trump administration to cut wasteful, cruel government animal testing since his first term in 2017.
WCW President and Founder Anthony Bellotti gave The Gateway Pundit the following statement celebrating the win:
“This is another historic White Coat Waste victory — and we couldn’t be prouder to have worked with the Trump Administration to cut CDC’s government monkey business. Secretary Kennedy has now delivered on his promise to work with White Coat Waste by completely shutting down the CDC’s primate labs, where hundreds of victims were infected with smallpox, hemorrhagic fevers, hepatitis, and HIV-like viruses at taxpayer expense. Gateway Pundit’s reporting on White Coat Waste’s transgender monkey testing investigation was pivotal in making primate testing cuts a priority for the Trump administration.
During the first Trump Administration, a White Coat Waste investigation and campaign also prompted the FDA to end wasteful nicotine addiction tests on baby monkeys and — for the first time ever — retire the primates to a sanctuary. We’ve been working with Trump’s HHS to secure the same reprieve for as many CDC lab survivors as possible, which White Coat Waste has been urging the agency to do for years.
While legacy groups in the animal rights establishment throw red paint, we cut red tape — and, since 2017, White Coat Waste has led winning campaigns to wipe out entire federal primate labs under President Trump. The solution is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness!”
Bellotti cites The Gateway Pundit and WCW’s August 2025 exposé on NIH and Florida state dollars being used to create “transgender monkeys” as a key factor that elevated the issue inside the new administration and helped make primate lab defunding a top priority.
In addition, in August, Laura Loomer reported in response to the TGP article, “Secretary Kennedy, who wrote about White Coat Waste’s viral ‘Beaglegate’ investigation in his book ‘The Real Anthony Fauci,’ said he looks forward to working with White Coat Waste to identify and cut more wasteful, inhumane, and unnecessary taxpayer funded animal tests.”
Hellbound and Down 