I was horrified to learn about the University of Michigan's unspeakable practice of having their students practice emergency trauma intervention techniques on live shelter dogs, and then, after the dogs have been cut open, injected, and thoroughly used up, killing them.
The University's use of perfectly healthy dogs for this purpose is not only unconscionable, it is illegal, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), which has filed a formal complaint against the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor facility with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, alleging that the practice is a violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act "because the principal investigator provided false information about alternative nonanimal technologies to justify animal use in his protocol."
Philadelphia Examiner Dog Advocate Megan Drake wrote an excellent piece exposing this horror on January 15th, where she points out that of 150 Advanced Trauma Life Support teaching facilities surveyed, "more than 90 percent use exclusively non-human models and no longer inflict injuries on dogs for practice." Why, then, she asks, is the University of Michigan continuing to use living dogs for this purpose when it actually has its own state-of-the-art simulation lab? Why indeed!
The PCRM poignantly identifies two of the hapless dogs who were victims of the University of Michigan's barbaric techniques: "a silver-and-black malamute named Koda and a wandering golden retriever picked up while still wearing his blue collar." These were not sick or unloved dogs, and the heartache that their people must have experienced upon learning the fate of their canine friends is almost unimaginable.
We can prevent other dogs from being seized and similarly tormented. Please take a minute to add your voice to those who are determined to Save Dogs From Trauma Training at the University of Michigan.
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