Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reportedly overseen nearly $800,000 in federal funding for a research project involving a Russian laboratory with ties to the Siberian facility at the center of a suspected plague outbreak. According to a new investigation by animal testing watchdog White Coat Waste (WCW), the National Institutes of Health awarded $779,689 to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2025 and 2026 for research conducted in partnership with Russia's state-run Institute of Cytology and Genetics. Federal records obtained by the group and reported on Wednesday show that the project received $389,943 in July 2025 and another $389,746 in September 2026.