This Pharma Giant Injected Dogs With Rabies. Here’s Why It’s a Threat to You.

In November 2025, Merck quietly published results from an experiment where it injected rabies into dozens of Ridglan dogs, watched them descend into fear and madness, then cut out their brain tissue to vivisect.

Just one month earlier, in October of 2025, Ridglan had been implicated in hundreds of new counts of felony animal abuse. The state Veterinary Examining Board (VEB) was so shocked by the cruelty at Ridglan, including dogs being surgically mutilated without anesthesia, that it issued an order indicating that the situation at Ridglan “imperatively requires emergency action.” The VEB did its part to respond to the emergency; it suspended the license of Rick Van Domelen, the veterinarian and facility manager at Ridglan Farms. It was the only suspension the VEB would issue for the entire year of 2025.

Yet despite the official findings of animal abuse, and the mass outcry against Ridglan, there was one Ridglan customer who continued to shamelessly work with the company: Merck. Merck published its November 2025 study, which it had collaborated with Ridglan on, then it went back to Ridglan for even more dogs in 2026. As recently as May of this year, Merck was still buying dogs from Ridglan. The entire nation said the abuse must stop, from Lara Trump to Ricky Gervais. Merck ensured it would continue.

Here, however, is the key point. The cruelty inflicted on those defenseless dogs is not just an animal welfare issue. It is a demonstration of something much darker: a political system that allows the most powerful and wealthy interests to hurt or kill anyone—including you. If Big Pharma can get away with ruthlessly torturing puppies, it can get away with hurting you.

That might seem like an exaggeration. It is not. Merck and other pharmaceutical companies have targeted, not just dogs, but human beings as test subjects for corporate profit. From the opioid crisis caused by Purdue Pharma to thousands of heart attack deaths caused (and covered up) by Merck’s Vioxx, drug companies have for many years covered up deadly outcomes in pursuit of profit.

The consequences of this corruption are dire. In the case of Merck’s work with Ridglan, dogs in the rabies trials suffered from “sudden anorexia, signs of apprehension or nervousness,” “ataxia” (loss of motor function), and even “paralysis.” As a dog neared her death, “a normally docile [dog] may suddenly become vicious.”

In the case of Merck’s work on the painkiller Vioxx, millions of Americans were duped into buying a deadly painkiller. As many as 100,000 people had heart attacks and died as a result. Despite a 2008 investigation by the Journal of the American Medical Association showing an intentional cover-up by Merck, no one at the company was ever criminally prosecuted.

If a company is allowed to do horrifying, illegal things, it’s just a matter of time before it does horrible, illegal things to you.

But here is the optimistic piece. Things are changing. Across the globe, people are recognizing the dangers posed by concentrated power in the hands of those who pursue profit above all else. Purdue Pharma, which followed in Merck’s footsteps by covering up the risks of another deadly painkiller, OxyContin, is now bankrupt and gone. Merck, if it does not reform, must be next.

But as with Purdue, it won’t happen without exposure and grassroots effort. The regulators, too often, are bought by the corporations they are supposed to regulate. The politicians, too often, are wined and dined by the lobbyists. To protect the dogs—to protect all of us—it will take a movement. I hope you’ll join it this weekend.

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What’s up this week?

• The weekend of action to save the dogs is October 23-25. My friend Zoe and the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere are leading the effort to protest companies like Merck, which experiment on dogs. You can find a list of protests to join—or even put together a protest yourself—at this website. Every person can make a difference, so even if you’ve never protested, make it out!

• The Ridglan prosecution escalated this week, with dozens of new people formally charged. Today, 48 new defendants had their initial appearance. The District Attorney himself, Ismael Ozanne, tried to argue that defendants should be held in custody unless they paid bail, and even asked for an ankle monitor to be placed on defendant Amy Van Aartsen. His arguments failed, and every defendant was released without bail. But this is just the start of a long fight against a corrupt prosecutorial establishment. We will defend the right to rescue, and, with your support, we will win.

• The COMPACT Act, which would ban federal funding of dog and cat experiments, is off to a great start. Jen, one of the leaders of the political effort at Save the Dogs, gave a great Zoom presentation this weekend about what’s going on with the Act, including the rapid recruitment of co-sponsors of the bill. Perhaps the most inspiring example of this is Claudia Tenney, the Republican House member whose district includes the notorious Marshall BioResources, the single largest dog breeding and experimentation facility in the nation. If you want to hear more about what’s going on, and why we are focused on the COMPACT Act, check out this video.

• Apologies for the decline in content. I keep trying to keep up with content creation. And I keep failing. My latest excuse is graduate school. But I am going to make another public commitment to publish much more regularly on this Substack. The goal will be at least two posts a week. Eventually, I may even try to go back to writing every day!

That’s all for now!