University's Survival Flight Program Continues to Torment and Kill Animals When Modern, Non-Animal Training Methods Are Available
For Immediate Release:
March 16, 2011
Contact:
Robbyn Brooks 202-483-7382
Ann Arbor, Mich. -- More than fifteen PETA supporters—12 wearing pig masks and three wearing cat masks to represent the number of animals abused every year in University of Michigan (U-M) Survival Flight program—will converge on the U-M Health System's semiannual Survival Flight Conference in Ann Arbor on Thursday. U-M continues to conduct cruel and deadly training exercises on pigs and cats in its Survival Flight training course for nurses even though the program already has access to superior, humanlike simulators that are endorsed as complete replacements for animal laboratories by leading medical organizations.
When: Thursday, March 17, 12 noon
Where: Outside the Four Points by Sheraton Ann Arbor Hotel, 3200 Boardwalk Dr. (near the intersection of Boardwalk Drive and Victors Way), Ann Arbor
"Tormenting and killing animals to train flight nurses is like choosing a Wright Brothers plane over a jet," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "These cruel and archaic labs harm animals, students, and patients."
During the labs, nurses repeatedly force hard plastic tubes down cats' delicate windpipes, stab needles into pigs' bones and the tissue around their hearts, and cut holes into the pigs' throats, chests, and limbs. The pigs are killed at the conclusion of the course, and cats are put at risk for serious, life-threatening injuries. Simulators have been shown to better prepare trainees to treat human patients, and they are endorsed as replacements for animals by the Air & Surface Transport Nurses Association, the national organization representing flight nurses. The vast majority of facilities training flight nurses use simulators instead of animals.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.