Donald Trump on Tuesday told Congress Elon Musk had rooted out “hundred of billions of dollars” worth of government waste thanks to Doge.
Reeling off a long list of examples of apparent misspending, Mr Trump said that $45 million had been spent on diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma, $20 million on the Arab version of Sesame Street – and “$8 million for making mice transgender”.
“This is real,” he said.
Left-wing media outlets were quick to dismiss the claims as misinformation. After the White House released a statement branding CNN “fake news losers”, the outlet issued a correction to its fact check of Mr Trump’s speech, stating that “an earlier version of this item incorrectly characterised as false Trump’s claim”.
The president was referring to an investigation by the White Coat Waste Project, a non-profit campaigning to stop animal testing, which investigates taxpayer-funded experiments on the effects of gender-affirming drugs in rodents.
Justin Goodman, senior vice-president for the lobbying group, claimed it has documented “over $250 million spent on transgender animal experiments over the last couple of decades”.
He added that “there are over two dozen active federal grants funding transgender animal experiments, worth a total of $64 million”.
These include a National Institute of Health (NIH) funded project at Duke University that allegedly received $455,000 to study how HIV vaccines work in male mice subjected to female hormones – to imitate human gender transitions.
In another experiment, scientists at the University of Michigan allegedly spent $2,588,000 of an NIH grant investigating the effects of hormone treatment in mice to imitate gender transition.
A further experiment at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre allegedly spent $300,000 investigating breast cancer risk for transgender people by looking at tumours in mice.
A study at Emory University funded by NIH also allegedly spent $735,000 evaluating the contribution of the gut microbiome towards gender affirming hormone therapy in mice.
A researcher at Emory said: “We study the effects of the hormone treatment used by transgender people on skeletal development. We want to know if these hormones impair skeletal growth and increase the probability of osteoporosis later in life.”
They added that the experiments are conducted in “normal mice”.
Male sex hormone treatment on female mice
Meanwhile, scientists at the University of California are alleged to have spent $1,229,000 of NIH money looking at the effects of male sex hormone treatment on female mice.
A final experiment at Indiana University, funded by $3,100,000 of NIH money, looked into the effects of feminising hormone therapy on the lungs of rodents.
Representatives for the White Coat Waste Project testified at a February House Oversight Committee meeting chaired by Nancy Mace, in which the South Carolina congresswoman used the examples of gender experiments on animals to underscore concerns about government waste.
The watchdog’s representatives alleged that 95 per cent of the federal funding comes from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Mr Musk recently called government spending on research into the effects of hormone treatment on animals “demented” in an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
The Tesla billionaire said the scientists were “mutilating animals”, describing the experiments as the “worst thing you can possibly imagine from a horror show”.
Elon Musk said the scientists were ‘mutilating animals’ – Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America
During his first term, Mr Trump moved to restrict animal testing, with the Environmental Protection Agency announcing plans to end the practice by 2035.
However, the agency reportedly abandoned its plans last year amid concerns that testing chemicals on animals remains the safest means of reducing harm to humans.
Mr Goodman said: “We’re absolutely thrilled and honoured that the president highlighted our investigation during the state of the union and helped us expose wasteful government spending that’s torturing animals in grotesque experiments.
“I think that these experiments are a great example of DEI programmes run amok, where programmes that claim to be intended to help marginalised people are being exploited to torture animals in sick experiments that only benefit the mad scientists conducting them.
“I think most taxpayers agree that money should not be spent to perform hormone therapies on lab animals to make them transgender.”
In a statement on its website, CNN said its story had been updated with context about the spending, “which was for research studies on the potential human health impacts of treatments used in gender-affirming care”.
Duke University, the University of Michigan, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, the University of California and Indiana University were approached for comment.
