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Following Discussions With PETA, Center Decides to Use Only Modern and Humane Simulators
For Immediate Release:May 10, 2011
Contact:Robbyn Brooks 202-483-7382
San Diego — Following discussions with PETA that began in 2009, the Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) has confirmed that it will no longer use cats in a cruel and archaic intubation training exercise in its Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course. NMCSD will now use only state-of-the-art infant patient simulators—which are recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA), the sponsor of the PALS course—and all the cats who remain at the facility will be adopted out into loving homes.
"Naval Medical Center San Diego's decision to stop shoving tubes down cats' tracheas—which are nothing like a human baby's—will not only spare cats from pain and suffering but also ensure that the center's medical professionals get the best training possible," says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo.
Previously, cats used in NMCSD's PALS course were declawed and subjected to intubation training sessions up to five times per year for three years. Trainees would force hard plastic tubes down the cats' delicate windpipes as many as 10 times each session in a procedure that can cause bleeding, swelling, pain, scarring, collapsed lungs, and even death.
The AHA states that it "does not endorse the use of live animals for PALS training" and that it "recommends that any hands-on intubation training for the AHA PALS course be performed on lifelike human manikins."
One of the PALS course's codevelopers as well as several military pediatric medical experts joined PETA in urging the NMCSD to end the cat laboratory. Unlike animal-based methods, this technology allows participants to practice procedures repeatedly on models that accurately replicate human anatomy. PETA is now calling on the small number of other military facilities that continue to use animals for intubation training to follow NMCSD's lead and end the practice.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.