Two former military doctors have asked Hawaii-based Marines not to allow medical personnel to operate on pigs and goats during combat trauma training this week.
The doctors wrote Marine Corps Base Hawaii commander Col. Jeffrey Woods on Thursday, asking that medics at his base use simulator suits that mimic the human body instead.
"While the purpose of (this) week’s course is to train those medical personnel to respond to battlefield injuries and prevent fatalities, the use of animals is cruel and unnecessary," said the letter, signed by Dr. Douglas Bell and Dr. Robert Lucius.
The animals are made unconscious before the training. Then, according to the letter, training participants cut into the animals’ legs, slice open their throats and insert tubes and needles into their chests and abdomens. The animals are euthanized afterward.
Bell, who is a retired Honolulu internist and was an Army doctor stationed in South Korea from 1956 to 1958, said it would be better to use simulators instead of needlessly sacrificing animals.
Bell isa member of the group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington, D.C.-based group that has been campaigning against the use of live animals in medical training. Lucius is a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and doctor in Pacific Grove, Calif.
Base spokesman Maj. Alan Crouch said the training will be conducted in accordance with Marine policy and in line with the Animal Welfare Act and other laws. The Navy provides doctors and corpsmen for the Marines.
"This invaluable training is a vital part of the units’ preparation for combat deployment," Crouch said in an emailed statement.
Another group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has also urged the military to avoid using live animals in training.
Bell, 81, said he had to practice on animals when he went to medical school at the University of Rochester.
"I can remember very well, going in physiology and having to do this to animals," he said Friday. Bell says he was just a medical student and didn’t object, though in retrospect he probably should have.
"It always seemed to me a little wasteful to pester and torture these poor animals," he said.
