'Pig' and 'Cat' Crash Award Ceremony Honoring U-M President

Mary Sue Coleman Allows Animals to Die in Trauma-Training Labs When Modern, Non-Animal Methods Are Available

For Immediate Release:
February 22, 2011

Contact:
Robbyn Brooks 757-622-7382  

Detroit-- Holding signs that read, "Stop U-M's Social Injustice," PETA supporters—including a larger-than-life "pig" and "cat"—will converge outside the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit, where University of Michigan (U-M) president Mary Sue Coleman will be receiving a Social Justice Award from a chapter of the Federal Bar Association. Why is PETA raining on Coleman's parade? Because she continues to allow cruel and deadly training exercises on pigs and cats in U-M's Survival Flight training course even though the same skills are already taught elsewhere at U-M using superior, humanlike simulators.

Where:   Westin Book Cadillac Detroit, 1114 Washington Blvd. (near the intersection of Washington Boulevard and Michigan Avenue), Detroit

When:   Wednesday, February 23, 11 a.m.

"There will be no justice at U-M as long as Mary Sue Coleman sits idly by while pigs and cats are maimed and killed," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. "These cruel and archaic labs harm animals, students, and patients."

During the labs—which are also opposed by the U-M student government—trainees 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 complete replacements for animals in this training by the Air & Surface Transport Nurses Association, the national organization representing flight nurses. The overwhelming majority of facilities training flight nurses use simulators instead of animals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.