U.S. Army Shooting Live Pigs in Trauma Training

PETA has received shocking information from a whistleblower in the U.S. military, informing us that the U.S. Army is shooting live pigs in an open range with M16A2 and M4 rifles at the U.S. Army Garrison at Schofield Barracks (Hawaii). The Army's stated purpose of this training exercise is to teach combat medics how to manage traumatic battlefield wounds and injuries—even though more effective non-animal simulators are readily available. Leading medical experts agree these simulators offer superior training.

PETA is calling for an immediate end to this inhumane training exercise as well as a ban on the use of all animals for training military medics. Most medical schools long ago ended the use of animals for trauma training.

Many humane alternatives for trauma training are readily available, such as having military level one trauma centers work with the community and take care of the entire population of their city; the Combat Trauma Patient Simulation System, which "provide[s] realistic training" and dropped the trainee attrition rate from 23 percent to 6 percent, according to CHIPS, the U.S. Navy's information technology magazine; Simulab Corporation's TraumaMan system, which has been approved by the American College of Surgeons for teaching Advanced Trauma Life Support; and Dr. Emad Aboud's "living" cadaver perfusion model, which has been endorsed by more than 20 surgeons and used in surgical training at universities in the U.S. and abroad.

www.peta.org