Beaglegate, Dr. Fauci, and the Broader Question of the Use of Dogs in Research

In a hearing about the coronavirus pandemic, congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene hounded (no pun intended) Dr. Fauci about experiments conducted with beagles which were approved by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during his tenure as its director. She called these experiments disgusting and evil, stated that Americans don’t pay their taxes for animals to be tortured like this, and she refused to call Dr. Fauci a doctor. This hearing was about the coronavirus pandemic, so at one-point Fauci asked puzzled, “What do dogs have to do with anything we are talking about today?”. To be fair, some of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s other questions did address matters related to the coronavirus issue, although she did not give Fauci a chance to answer them, at one point even saying “Nah, I don’t need your answer”. Nevertheless, what I want to address in this post is the issue of the beagle experiments (which has been termed “Beaglegate”) because it often receives a superficial treatment every time it is brought up.
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​The experiments in question involved beagle dogs which were anesthetized and then placed in contact with sand flies carrying a protozoan parasite called leishmania. There are about 700 thousand to one million cases of leishmania infection worldwide each year, and in many countries where this happens, dogs are the main animal reservoir for the parasite in urban areas. How severe a leishmania infection is depends on the strain of the parasite. The most common variety of the parasite will produce a cutaneous form of the disease, which will just produce scarring at the site of infection. However, more pathogenic varieties of the parasite can produce visceral leishmaniasis, which can be lethal if left untreated in 90% of the cases among children under 5 years of age, adults over 50 years of age, or people with comorbidities or compromised immune systems. While leishmaniasis is a disease associated with developing countries, it has already made its way to Texas. Therefore, this disease if of interest to scientists and medical doctors from a public health perspective, and because dogs are often involved in the transmission of the parasite in urban environments, they have been used extensively as experimental models to study the disease (for example click on these links: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).
 
So yes, dogs are used in experiments where they have to be infected with the parasite by various means, and yes, the dogs will face a certain amount of discomfort and pain, and yes, they will be euthanized at the end to obtain biological samples and to evaluate the changes the disease produces to their bodies.
 
My question then is: what is the problem?
 
Here many people get emotional. They would say, “The poor dogs were being “eaten” by sandflies in these experiments! This is torture! This is cruel! This is immoral! This is…etc.”. These, of course, are value judgements. As a society, we have to decide what our values are with respect to issues involving dogs. For example, in some countries it is legal to breed dogs commercially to eat them, but in the United States the Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Law of 2018 ended commercial dog meat businesses. So, if people want to ban experimentation with dogs, they should petition their elected representatives. However, as of now, it is perfectly legal to conduct experiments with dogs. Between 2007 and 2019, more than 8,000 publications in scientific journals have involved dogs, and of these, more than 5,000 have involved beagles.
 
Experimentation with dogs has led to many discoveries and medical treatments. Dogs were employed in the experiments that led to the discovery of insulin. Research on dogs in the field of cardiology led to the first electrical defibrillator. Dogs were also used in the development of artificial heart valves. Because dogs can be bred to develop muscular dystrophy like humans, they have been used for researching this condition leading to a better genetic tests and treatments. Dogs were used in the first demonstration that cigarette smoke causes cancer, and to show that second hand smoke causes cancer too. A lot of what we know about the effects of radiation on health comes from experiments with dogs. Many new drugs are also tested on dogs before beginning clinical trials with humans. And research on dogs has also benefited dogs. Vaccines against rabies, parvovirus, and canine hepatitis were developed using dogs in the research. Research on dogs has also led to canine improved nutritional guidelines and medicines to treat dogs.
 
Insofar as science is concerned, scientists working with dogs and other animals as experimental subjects are required to follow guidelines to ensure good animal welfare both by the institutions where they work and by the institutions which provide their funding. If they don’t, they should be sanctioned, but nobody is arguing that the experimental guidelines were not followed in the Beaglegate experiments. As to Dr. Fauci, he did not specifically and individually approve the grants for the beagle experiments. The grant review process first involves a review by a group called the Scientific Review Group made up primarily of non-federal scientists with expertise in the relevant areas of research. The grants are then reviewed by another group called the Advisory Council, which is made up of scientific and public representatives chosen for their expertise, interest, and activity in areas of public health. The only grant applications funded are those recommended by both groups. At the end of this process, Dr. Fauci, as director of the institute, formally approved bundles of thousands of grants at a time, which he did not read or review on an individual basis.
 
My opinion on this whole matter is that the outrage over “Beaglegate” is just another way that Fauci haters have tried to slander him. Dr. Fauci has saved or improved the lives of tens of millions of people with his research and his public service. After not being able to tarnish his impeccable reputation, they have resorted to exploiting the fondness of people for cute animals to smear Dr. Fauci over perfectly legal experiments that are critical for public health.
 
The image, designed by Wannapik, is used under a non-commercial license.