Taxpayer Money Still Flowing To Lab Monkeying With COVID-19 And Linked To Herpes-Ridden Primate Rumors

Rhesus monkeys that were euthanized Tuesday after escaping during a truck crash on I-59 in Jasper County, Mississippi, were leaving a laboratory which receives federal funding through taxpayer grants.

Under former National Institutes of Health of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci, the agency awarded a multi-million dollar grant to the Tulane National Primate Research Center, now known as the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center. The lab’s research programs include “a variety of important multidisciplinary projects” in biomedical science, ranging from COVID-19 to AIDS, according to its website.

The fact that the monkeys hailed from a taxpayer-funded lab was first flagged by the White Coat Waste (WCW) project, a government watchdog and animal advocacy organization.

“White Coat Waste has been exposing and working to cut taxpayer funding for Tulane’s primate lab for years — and right after the crash, we followed the monkeys and the money straight to the National Institutes of Health (NIH),” WCW Senior Vice President Justin Goodman said in a statement. “The way to end Tulane’s monkey business is simple: Stop the money. Stop the madness.” (RELATED: Mississippi Cops Slaughter Escaped Monkeys After Trucker Said They Were Riddled With Herpes)

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, arrives to testify before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 03, 2024 in Washington, DC.(Photo by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

It is not clear which programs the NIH specifically funds at the Tulane lab. Though more taxpayer-funded grants were dispersed to the lab in August 2025, the “Resources and Workforce Development for the Tulane Regional Biocontainment Laboratory” grant for 2.8 million was first awarded in August 2023.

It is also not clear how many monkeys were in the crashed vehicle, who owns them or why they were being moved, though the truck was leaving Tulane when it crashed, according to multiple reports. Deputies initially warned residents on Tuesday that three monkeys were “aggressive,” and on the loose. The trucker transporting them told deputies the animals carried COVID, hepatitis C and herpes, though Tulane said in a statement that the primates weren’t part of a Tulane transport and “are not infectious.”

The department continued to note that “all but one of the escaped monkeys have been destroyed.”

“Nonhuman primates at the Tulane National Biomedical Research Center are provided to other research organizations to advance scientific discovery,” the university’s statement said on Wednesday. “This is a common practice among research organizations. On Oct. 28, a vehicle was transporting 21 Rhesus Macaques when an accident occurred on I-59 in Mississippi. The nonhuman primates were not being transported by Tulane, not owned by Tulane, and not in Tulane’s custody. The primates in question were not carrying any diseases and had received recent checkups confirming that they were pathogen-free. Although Tulane did not transport or own the nonhuman primates at the time of the incident, we sent a team of animal care experts to assist in this tragic incident.”

Tulane also notes on its website that the program is “one of the nation’s longest-running National Institutes of Health-funded research programs.”

Tulane did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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