'I Am Not Lab Equipment,' Says Kitten in Ad Deemed Too Blunt for Billboards, Now Heading for Gas Pumps
For
Immediate Release:
January
23, 2012
Contact:
Kristin
Richards 202-483-7382
St. Louis -- PETA's hard-hitting ad campaign urging Washington University in St. Louis to join nearly every other facility in the country by using only humanlike simulators instead of live cats and ferrets for intubation training exercises has hit the city, just in time for the spring semester. During the labs, course participants repeatedly force plastic tubes down cats' and ferrets' windpipes, which is painful and puts the animals at risk for serious and life-threatening injuries.
One ad—which shows a caged cat next to the words "Washington University: Resolve to Do Better in 2012. End Cruel Cat Labs"—is currently running on the website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and will run both online and in the January 23 issue of the school's student newspaper, Student Life. Google ads have already gone live and will run as long as the school continues the cruel labs. Another ad—which was rejected by local billboard companies for including the university's name—will appear atop gas pumps in six gas stations within 5 miles of the school starting in February.
"Washington University has access to superior human simulators and could stop abusing cats and ferrets in crude medical training exercises today," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "It's long past the time for Washington University to modernize its curriculum and provide the best training methods available that will save animals and help students."
Washington University continues to use cats in its Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course (offered jointly with St. Louis Children's Hospital) even though the American Heart Association, which sponsors PALS, states that it "does not require or endorse the use of animals in PALS courses" and approves the use of only human simulators for intubation training. The school uses ferrets in its pediatric residency program, even though 90 percent of these programs across the country use only simulators for this same training. Washington University is the only facility in Missouri that still uses animals for intubation training.
For more information, please visit PETA.org/WashU.