Facility Reneges on Promise to Switch to Modern Human Simulators
For Immediate Release:
March 16, 2012
Contact:
Kristin Richards 202-483-7382
Tacoma, Wash. -- Just in time for the Monday lunch hour, PETA members will unfurl a giant banner from an overpass on Interstate 5 that reads, "Madigan: Keep Your Promise. End Cruel Animal Labs." In its 2007 annual report, Tacoma-based Madigan Army Medical Center wrote that the use of ferrets for pediatric intubation training "will be phased out due to the development of adequate simulation training models." But trainees at Madigan continue to force hard plastic tubes down ferrets' delicate windpipes, a painful procedure that can cause bleeding, swelling, scarring, collapsed lungs, and even death.
When: Monday, March 19, 12 noon
Where: Berkeley Street overpass above Interstate 5 (near exit 122), facing north, Tacoma
"Madigan Army Medical Center is harming ferrets and giving its trainees a second-rate education in direct violation of Department of Defense regulations," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "The Army owes it to these animals—and to the children whose lives could depend on trainees' level of skill—to make the switch to modern infant simulators as other military facilities have already done."
Department of Defense regulations require the use of "[m]ethods other than animal use" for training purposes when they are available. William Beaumont Army Medical Center, Tripler Army Medical Center, Naval Medical Center San Diego, and Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences have all completely replaced their animal intubation laboratories with modern simulators, as have 90 percent of all U.S. pediatric residency programs. Studies show that pediatric intubation training on simulators better prepares trainees to treat children than do crude animal laboratories.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.