White Coat Waste has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding that the Department of Health and Human Services turn over records on animal experiments and the virus smuggling scandal at NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, the NIAID campus the group has nicknamed “Wuhan West.”
The taxpayer and animal welfare watchdog filed the complaint on September 15 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit covers seven FOIA requests sent in 2025 and 2026, some of which have sat unanswered for more than 18 months.
The requests seek IACUC protocols for work at Rocky Mountain Labs on Ebola, other filoviruses, Nipah, Hendra, Lassa, Sudan virus, SARS-CoV-2 variants, Heartland virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, avian influenza, and tick colonies, including photos and video of animals used in those studies.
Later requests target records on the undeclared importation of biological materials from Africa by NIH personnel, specifically virologist Vincent Munster, including correspondence with Customs and Border Protection, the FBI, CDC, USDA, DOJ, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the HHS inspector general.
The agencies acknowledged the requests, but sent nothing over, according to White Coat Waste.
White Coat Waste has long worked to expose this lab and scientist.
Hellbound and Down 