Lab Kittens Turned Cannibals, Fed Cat, Dog Parts For 'Sick' USDA Experiments

According to a disturbing new watchdog report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is turning lab kittens into cannibals by feeding them parts of dogs and cats. The research was being carried out at the Agricultural Research Service’s Animal Parasitic Disease Laboratory (APDL) in Beltsville, Maryland, the White Coat Waste Project’s report said.

As part of the twisted experiments, kittens were also fed with the hearts, brains and tongues of dogs. The animals that were euthanized to be used as lab food included over 400 dogs from Colombia, Brazil and Vietnam and over 100 cats from China and Ethiopia.

“It’s crazy,” Jim Keen, a former USDA scientist who co-authored the report, told NBC News. “Cannibal cats, cats eating dogs — I don’t see the logic.”

The goal of the experiments, which took place as recently as 2015, was to study the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which causes toxoplasmosis, a common parasitic infection that causes food-borne illness.

“That the USDA could, for over a decade, use taxpayers’ money to go around the world rounding up hundreds of kittens and puppies, killing them, and feeding their brains to cats for useless experiments highlights the disturbing lack of accountability and transparency at the agency,” Justin Goodman, the vice president for advocacy and public policy at the White Coat Waste Project, said, calling the practice “kitten cannibalism.”

The White Coat Waste Project’s goal is to eliminate taxpayer-funded animal testing. The agency currently breeds up to 100 kitties at its Maryland lab every year.

“The details of these kitten experiments keep getting worse and they need to end now,” Florida Rep. Brian Mast, the lead Republican co-sponsor of a bill to cut taxpayer funding for animal testing, told NBC News. “The fact that the USDA has been rounding up pets and other innocent dogs and cats in foreign countries —including at Chinese meat markets condemned by Congress — killing them and feeding them to lab cats back here in the States is simply disgusting and unjustifiable.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, called the revelations "deeply disturbing," adding: "We can advance scientific discovery while treating animals humanely, and American taxpayers have every right to expect our government will meet that standard."

The WCW report contends the experiments were needless.

"These were all abnormal diets for cats, dogs and mice so likely irrelevant to natural toxoplasmosis biology. Their scientific relevance and justification is questionable, at best, as is their relevance to American public health since we do not consume cats and dogs, and the practice is now outlawed in U.S.," the report said.

The USDA states that “The mission of the Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory (APDL) is to reduce parasitic disease in livestock and poultry pathogens and their risk of transmission to people.”