Less than two weeks after receiving appeals from PETA and PETA Germany, RWTH Aachen University, a top German college, has announced that it will no longer perform invasive and deadly training exercises on live pigs in its advanced surgical course, effective immediately!

Truly 'Advanced' Training

Earlier this month, PETA and PETA Germany sent university officials and the German state veterinary authority a detailed dossier outlining humane and superior surgical training methods that—unlike the cruel procedures then used by RWTH Aachen—wouldn't risk violating German laws requiring the use of non-animal teaching methods when available.

The outreach to RWTH Aachen followed PETA Germany's discovery that as part of the "Advanced Skill Course" at the school's surgical clinic, students were cutting open pigs' chests, inserting tubes, and surgically removing their organs before finally killing the animals.

Move the Momentum to Michigan

While RWTH Aachen and the University of Ulm in Germany have both recently scrapped the crude and archaic use of pigs in labs in favor of training surgeons on modern and sophisticated 21st century technology, some U.S. facilities—including the University of Michigan—continue to cut holes into pigs' limbs, throats, and chests and stab needles into their bones and hearts for trauma training exercises even though superior simulation methods exist.

How You Can Help These Pigs

Please tell officials at the University of Michigan to cut out cruel trauma training on pigs and start using humane, contemporary methods of instruction instead.

Friday marked an inspiring victory for pigs, who were routinely being cut apart, surgically mutilated, and killed as part of an elective medical training course at Germany's University of Ulm. Just two hours after PETA Germany asked supporters to contact university officials, the university announced that it would be permanently ending the pig lab!

Medical students and doctors at the university were performing invasive surgeries on live pigs, including cutting out their gallbladders, removing part of their stomachs and livers, and cutting holes in their chests. Using live animals is a crude and archaic method of teaching surgery, and more and more leading institutions have adopted the use of sophisticated human simulators in place of animals. In fact, the use of animals for this purpose appears to violate German law, which requires the use of non-animal teaching methods whenever they are available.

PETA U.S. assisted PETA Germany by drafting a comprehensive brief for University of Ulm officials that described humane, non-animal options for teaching the procedures that students were performing on pigs.

While the University of Ulm is modernizing its curriculum, here at home, the  Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) still mutilates and kills live pigs in trauma training exercises by cutting holes in their throats and chests, despite the availability of superior, non-animal training methods. Tell MUSC President Raymond Greenberg to end the barbaric training exercises on animals immediately.

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan