Doctors Sue Defense Department for Withholding Documents About Deadly Training Exercises on Animals

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A medical ethics group filed a federal lawsuit today against the Department of Defense and its health agency for failing to hand over documents related to medical training exercises in which animals are killed. The nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine points out that doctors being trained at four military facilities, including Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP), perform invasive procedures on pigs, a violation of the department’s own policy and a practice out of step with the vast majority of medical centers nationwide.

Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Physicians Committee has been trying for more than a year to obtain records from NMCP, which uses animals in its emergency medicine residency, and Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington state, Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center in Texas, and Naval Medical Center San Diego, which use animals in their surgery residencies. In some cases, DOD FOIA staff have refused to respond to emails and phone calls.

Records previously obtained by the Physicians Committee reveal that NMCP residents stab pigs’ hearts to simulate trauma and eviscerate the animals’ bowels. During the training sessions, the animals are killed before additional procedures are performed on them. Yet a DOD policy requires that “[a]lternative methods to animal use will be considered and used…if such methods produce scientifically or educationally valid or equivalent results.”

Scientific studies—including many conducted by the U.S., Canadian, and Israeli militaries—reveal that medical training models based on human anatomy are as good or better than animals for learning lifesaving skills, building confidence, and preparing military doctors for battlefield stress. Those models, called simulators, include lifelike skin, pumping blood, and anatomically correct organs.

“I have trained on both live animals and human simulators, and there’s no doubt that simulators are far superior. Our service men and women deserve the best educated doctors, ones who have trained and become proficient on human anatomy,” said Cmdr. Erin Griffith, DO, FAAEM, retired emergency medicine physician with over 20 years of active duty Naval service.

Across the U.S. and Canada, 97% of emergency medicine residency programs—284 of the 292 programs surveyed—train without animals. Emergency medicine programs affiliated with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army, at Wright State University and the Medical College of Georgia, use only nonanimal methods.

When it comes to surgery training, the Physicians Committee points out that 78% of such residencies in the U.S.—223 of the 286 medical centers surveyed—train without animals. Surgery programs affiliated with Harvard, Yale, Stanford, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Mayo Clinic use only nonanimal methods.

To interview Cmdr. Griffith or to see a copy of the lawsuit, please contact Reina Pohl at 202-527-7326 or rpohl [at] pcrm.org (rpohl[at]pcrm[dot]org).