U.S. doctors protest Canadian medical schools killing live pigs
 
 
By Tiffany Crawford August 27, 2009

 
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine plans to file a 
complaint early next week with the Canadian Council on Animal Care 
against the University of Saskatchewan for using and killing live pigs 
in the course of teaching doctors how to treat medical trauma cases. 
Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., also uses live pigs in its trauma 
training.
 
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine plans to file a 
complaint early next week with the Canadian Council on Animal Care 
against the University of Saskatchewan for using and killing live pigs 
in the course of teaching doctors how to treat medical trauma cases. 
Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., also uses live pigs in its trauma 
training.
Photograph by: Tim Sloan, AFP/Getty Images

OTTAWA — Two Canadian medical schools are under fire from a Washington
-based physicians' group for using and killing live pigs in the course 
of teaching doctors how to treat medical trauma cases.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine plans to file a 
complaint early next week with the Canadian Council on Animal Care 
against the University of Saskatchewan. The letter, to be sent Sept. 2, 
urges officials to end the use of pigs in upcoming trauma training 
courses, scheduled for Sept. 3 through 5.

A University of Saskatchewan spokeswoman said late Thursday, that the 
program intends to abandon the use of live animals in favour of 
simulators.

"It's my understanding that the director of the program Dr. Paul Hayes 
has purchased a (simulator) and plans to use it to teach classes," said 
Kathryn Warden, director of research communications.

Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., also uses live pigs in its trauma 
training. A spokesman for the physicians committee, Dr. John Pippin, 
said they're waiting to hear back from Queen's. Several letters to the 
University of Saskatchewan from the committee went unanswered, 
prompting the complaint, said Pippin.

He said 95 per cent of Canadian and U.S. facilities providing Advanced 
Trauma Life Support training use cadavers or lifelike human patient 
models instead of animals. The course trains medical students how to 
respond to patients suffering from acute trauma.

Out of 191 medical schools and hospitals across North America surveyed 
by the committee, only the two Canadian institutions and eight American 
medical schools reported no immediate plans to abandon the use of live 
animals, said Pippin.

The trauma training at the two universities involves repeatedly 
inserting tubes and needles into the abdomens and chest cavities of 
pigs, said Pippin.

He said the animals' throats are cut open multiple times per session.

"They are transported and kept confined and manipulated before, which 
is very fearful for them," he said. "They can also receive pain and 
suffering during the procedure."

Although the animals are anesthetized during the procedures, he said 
they are subjected to the trauma of confinement and manipulation before 
being killed when the training session ends.

It's also a human safety issue — human simulators provide students with 
a more accurate representation of human anatomy, said Pippin.

"Regardless of where people stand on the issue of ethical treatment to 
animals, the accumulated evidence is so overwhelming and favours the 
use of simulators that mimic human anatomy," he said.

"When you learn on animals, you make mistakes on people. Really, the 
university doesn't have a leg to stand on to continue to use pigs when 
nearly everyone else has simulators."

Sunnybrook Health Centre in Toronto was on the list of institutions 
that used animals but this year switched to human simulators. Also, the 
University of Ottawa has written a letter to the committee promising to 
switch by next year.

Pippin said the group sent three letters to Dr. Paul Hayes, the head of 
the trauma training program at University of Saskatchewan, but has 
received no response.

University of Saskatchewan Dean of Medicine Dr. William Albritton said 
the ATLS program is run by Hayes, who is an independent physician and 
not a university employee. However, the courses are conducted using 
facilities at the school.

Pippin would not speculate on the reasons why the two universities have 
not switched, but said often, some schools won't switch because the 
instructor is only trained to use the live animals.

The American College of Surgeons, which determines standards for the 
trauma courses, has endorsed the human simulators since 2001.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a non-profit 
health organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts 
clinical research and encourages higher standards for ethics and 
effectiveness in research and education.

The Canadian Council on Animal Care guidelines state: "painful 
experiments or multiple invasive procedures on an individual animal, 
conducted solely for the instruction of students in the classroom, or 
for the demonstration of established scientific knowledge, cannot be 
justified."