Victory! Canadian Trauma Labs End Animal Use

All trauma-training laboratories in Canada have stopped using animals. The last two institutions in the country using animals—the University of Sherbrooke and Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal—recently moved to nonanimal methods.

Many Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) programs in Canada had previously involved cutting open anesthetized pigs and dogs to practice emergency medical procedures. The University of Sherbrooke was using 32 dogs a year.

Since 2009, seven Canadian ATLS programs have replaced animal use with simulators developed specifically for trauma training. Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, the University of Saskatchewan, Queen’s University, and McMaster University all used live animals until PCRM convinced the institutions to use nonanimal methods. Now all of the nearly two dozen ATLS programs in Canada use only nonanimal methods.

“Canada now leads the way in educational and ethical standards for ATLS training,” says John Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C., PCRM’s director of academic affairs. “There is no justification for using live animals. Nonanimal teaching methods offer a more effective—and more humane—way to teach lifesaving procedures.”

Only five of the more than 240 ATLS programs in the United States continue to use live animals for training.

To ask these U.S. programs to switch to simulators, visit PCRM.org/ATLS.