St. Louis Vegans and PETA Unite for Cats
PETA has teamed up with St. Louis Vegans to put extra pressure on St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) as part of PETA’s campaign to stop live cats from being tormented in painful and archaic medical training conducted cooperatively by the institutions.
A Real Horror Show
As the hospital and university held a Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course where trainees were forcing plastic tubes down cats’ windpipes as part of the crude intubation training exercise, the groups acted out the cruel procedure in a particularly unsettling—and unforgettable—form of street theater.
WUSTL and St. Louis Children’s Hospital continue to torment cats in PALS courses even though sophisticated humanlike simulators are available and the American Heart Association—which sponsors the course—states that it “does not require or endorse the use of animals in PALS courses.”
Simulators are already used instead of animals at virtually every institution that offers PALS, including other schools and medical centers in St. Louis. Even one of the original developers of the course has joined the fight against these crude laboratories.
What You Can Do
Please join PETA and St. Louis Vegans in telling Washington University and St. Louis Children’s Hospital that it’s time to leave the dark ages—and cruelty to cats—in the past and use superior modern simulators instead.
