Myths and Facts: The Use of Live Animals for Medical Training

Myth: It is necessary to use animals for medical training.

Fact: Since the 1990s, there has been an enormous shift away from using animals for medical training in the United States, Canada, and other countries. Today, 97% of surveyed emergency medicine residency programs in the U.S. and Canada—more than 280 hospitals and universities—use only nonanimal training methods, such as human-patient simulators, human cadavers, 3D-printed models, and partial task trainers. In addition, 78% of surveyed general surgery residency programs exclusively use human-relevant methods. Further, 99% of surveyed Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) courses have replaced animals. And due in large part to the efforts of the Physicians Committee, not a single school in the U.S. or Canada uses live animals to train medical students. Clearly, there are better ways to train than cutting into and killing animals.

Myth: Animals provide the “gold standard” for medical training.

Fact: Human-relevant methods are the gold standard for medical training. The anatomical differences between pigs (the species most used for medical training in the U.S. and Canada) and humans present numerous challenges when teaching medical procedures. Compared with humans, pigs have smaller torsos, smaller and lighter limbs, thicker skin, and a corkscrew-shaped gastrointestinal tract, as well as important differences in the anatomy of the head and neck, internal organs, rib cage, and airway. Applying the same pressure necessary for airway puncture in a pig could slice through a human airway. In addition, procedures learned on animals must later be re-learned on human anatomy.

Myth: The use of animals for medical training is humane and heavily regulated.

Fact: Under the federal Animal Welfare Act, no experiments are prohibited—including those that inflict pain. The Animal Welfare Act is primarily a husbandry statute that regulates the size of cages, cleanliness, and food and water. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is supposed to enforce the law, was cited by its own inspector general for closing investigations involving animal deaths and serious repeat violations and for unnecessarily reducing fines by an average of 86%. In February 2019, The Washington Post reported: “USDA inspectors documented 60% fewer violations at animal facilities in 2018 from the previous year…The drop in citations is one illustration of a shift—or what critics call a gutting—in USDA’s oversight of animal industries.” In addition, pigs are intelligent, emotionally complex animals. Even if the pigs remain under anesthesia during the emergency medicine course, they must endure the stress of transport, caging, and preparation for surgical procedures, and then they are killed—all just to provide substandard training.

Myth: The animals do not experience pain or stress because they are unconscious during the procedures.

Fact: While the animals are supposed to be unconscious during the procedures, pigs are known to be difficult to intubate and maintain under anesthesia, and experts point out that pigs “are one of the more difficult species to intubate and improper technique can result in significant trauma.” Plus, the animals suffer when they are shipped, confined in a sterile laboratory environment, and prepped for the procedures. Then they die. Replacing animals saves lives and improves training.

Myth: Only live animals can prepare trainees for the real-world stress of the emergency room or operating room.

Fact: Numerous scientific studies reveal that simulators modeled on human anatomy mimic real-world stress as well as or better than using animals. For example, the U.S. Army funded a study published in 2018 that compared goats to simulators and involved more than 200 medics. The authors concluded: “Synthetic models can produce a stress response equivalent to that of live tissue during simulation training.” Another study from 2017 compared the biomarkers of stress found in the saliva of medics while participating in a Tactical Medicine course using either live pigs or simulators, and found “that [simulators] and [live animals] do not exert varying effects on stress.”

Myth: The animals used for medical training would be slaughtered for food anyway.

Fact: This is simply false. Companies that sell animals for use in medical training or research increase breeding depending on anticipated sales.