Congress Can Save Thousands of Animals From Cruel Military Training

In order to train for severe burns, gunshot wounds, and amputations that can occur in combat, military medics use live animals. At the end of the training session, if the animals are not dead from the trauma they are subjected to, they are euthanized.

The switch to non-animal models is gaining momentum in medical research facilities across the United States. This move is not only for animal welfare but for more accurate results.

Now, House Resolution 1417 aims to bring the same superior training procedures to our armed forces. This would not only save the lives of more than 6,000 animals per year, it will provide our military personnel with better training methods that cost less.

Also known as the Battlefield Excellence through Superior Training (BEST) Practices Act, the bill aims to replace pigs, goats and monkeys in Department of Defense combat trauma training with human-based alternatives.

Currently, live pigs and goats are subjected to severe trauma, including gunshot wounds and amputations, while vervet monkeys are injected with chemicals that simulate nerve agents up to six times in one year. While under anesthesia, pigs and goats are slashed open with scalpels. To simulate combat situations that may occur, the animals are shot multiple times while being operated on.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has started a petition on Change.org to bring awareness to this important piece of legislation. Despite military claims that the number of battlefield-wounded soldiers that survived long enough to reach a hospital has increased due to field medical procedures, PCRM reminds us that advances in body armor technology are a factor. Additionally, the percentage of fatalities once wounded soldiers reach a hospital is actually higher than before.

H.R. 1417 also points out that the civilian sector “has almost exclusively phased in the use of superior human-based training methods for numerous medical procedures currently taught in military courses using animals.”

It is curious why the military clings onto archaic methods of training while the civilian sector has adopted more advanced methods. If the DOD needs more evidence against the use of live animals, just ask the military medical doctors who have been through the training. Dr. William Morris spent 20 years as a neurosurgeon in the Army and opposes the continued use of live animals in training: “Years ago, I took a training course similar to these using live animals. Even then I found the exercise cruel and useless. Pig or goat anatomy simply is not the same as a human’s.”

Dr. Morris contends that in the more than 15 years he has treated civilian medical traumas, he has treated the same injuries seen on the battlefield. Military physicians participating in civilian trauma rotations provide the necessary medical training for combat. “With the advancement of medical simulation, the continued maiming and killing of pigs and other animals in these courses is unnecessary,” he said.

H.R. 1417 has thirty-four co-sponsors standing behind California Rep. Bob Filner, who is the bill sponsor and previous chair of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. The goal is to replace all animals with human-based training methods by October 2016.

Unfortunately, H.R. 1417 has been stalled in the House Committee on Armed Services. Join PCRM in asking Congress to call for the end of live animals in military trauma training.

Photo Credit: Army Medical Department via DoDChemCas