1. Every year, the U.S. Department of Defense subjects thousands of live animals, mostly goats and pigs, to deadly military trauma training exercises.
2. These animals are crudely used as “stand-ins” for wounded soldiers, even though their anatomy and physiology is totally different from humans.
3. Each year, medics intentionally injure thousands of live animals before eventually killing them.
4. Live pigs are shot in the face, repeatedly stabbed, and set on fire.
5. Soldiers cut off live goats’ legs with tree trimmers …
6. … stab them repeatedly …
7. … and pull their internal organs out.
8. Sometimes goats wake up during the horrible exercises because they aren’t given enough anesthetics.
9. Participants joke about maiming goats …
10. … and wave around a severed goat limb.
11. These trauma exercises put soldiers’ lives at risk, as experts agree that the drills don’t adequately prepare medics to treat humans in the field.
12. “No animal model can adequately duplicate the anatomy and physiology of injuries inflicted upon the human body in war.”
—Michael P. Murphy, M.D.
Veteran, Operation Iraqi Freedom
Associate Professor of Surgery and Cellular and Integrative Physiology, Indiana University School of Medicine
Chief, Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center
13. Even the Department of Defense’s own regulations mandate that non-animal simulators must be used when available.
14. Simulators like these are already in use at several military trauma training facilities and more than 98 percent of civilian medical training centers.
15. More than 80 percent of the U.S.’ NATO allies also don’t use any animals for military medical training. Instead, they use lifelike simulators and other non-animal training methods.
16. And Germany has repeatedly blocked the U.S. Army from conducting trauma exercises using animals within German borders on the grounds that simulators are superior.
17. And in March of 2018 after pressure from PETA and thousands of supporters, the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed that it has permanently ended its use of animals in cruel trauma training drills (known as “live tissue training”).
Coast Guard is first military service to do away with live tissue training, a practice the service's commandant has called "abhorrent." https://t.co/HIexZLiE9b via @Militarydotcom
— Hope Hodge Seck (@HopeSeck) March 21, 2018
18. But the U.S. Department of Defense continues to torture and kill thousands of loving, playful, and intelligent goats and pigs each year, needlessly. These cruel exercises are conducted on many military bases, even though humane, superior methods, including human-patient simulators, exist.
There’s NO reason why animals should be dying for these exercises, which put soldiers at risk because they inadequately prepare troops to handle emergencies.
Take Action Now. Tell Congress to End Military Trauma Training on Animals!