Dr. Anthony Fauci's division of the National Institutes of Health paid over $200,000 during the coronavirus pandemic for researchers to study why transgender women have high rates of HIV by injecting male monkeys with female hormones.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in December 2021 gave Scripps Research $205,562 for the study, which aims to determine why transgender women have high rates of HIV. As part of the study, researchers subject male monkeys to feminizing hormone therapy to study how it impacts the monkeys' immune systems, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Fauci has overseen rampant animal testing since he took over the NIAID in 1984. It was revealed in November that the NIAID funded a study that infected beagles with heart-worm larvae and euthanized them after experimentations. As part of another study, researchers infected beagles with mutated bacteria from ticks.
The NIAID began running HIV vaccine tests on monkeys a year after Fauci took charge. Each year, the department acquires 400 to 600 rhesus monkeys from a South Carolina island leased by Charles River Laboratories, which has a $27.5 million contract with the NIAID.