The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine intensified its campaign against OHSU today, a move calculated to coincide with the start of a lab it says is in violation of federal law by using live pigs in a medical school class.
As about 20 first-year medical students reported to the lab—“The Cardiovascular Response to Hemmorhage”—at 7 am, Dr. John Pippin, Matt Rossell, and two other local activists greeted them with flyers and a large banner encouraging them to express concerns about animal cruelty via a new PCRM hotline. The banner reads: “Med Students: Blow the Whistle on Cruelty, Report Animal Pain and Distress in Your Lab 1-888-6-TIP-USDA.” (Disclosure: The group also paid WW’s advertising department $2,400 for a full-page ad in this week’s WW)
While PCRM has been pushing for OHSU to discontinue the course—an elective that 92 out of 117 eligible students opted to take—since December, the decision to bring its beef directly to the classroom marks a new stage in the conflict.
“We are launching an investigation,” says PCRM spokeswoman Jeanne McVey, “because we heard about an incident that took place last year where a medical student [at OHSU] noticed that a pig was coming out from under anesthesia and was distressed.” PCRM only learned of the episode, which reportedly took place in 2007, very recently. “The incident was observed by one student who told it to another student and that student told Dr. Ersson [and Dr. Ersson told us],” McVey says.
But OHSU doesn’t buy it. “I have never heard of this happening elsewhere and that has never happened at OHSU,” says spokesman Jim Newman of the distressed pig phenomenon. The pigs—about 16 will be used over the course of four lab meetings—“are heavily sedated before the class” and “are not aware of what is happening.” They are “humanely euthanized” when the students are through with them.
On Wednesday Dr. Pippin wrote the USDA to lodge a complaint against OHSU and to request federal inspectors come to the four lab meetings this month. According to Dr. Pippin, it is common for pigs to awaken—and suffer—during invasive procedures because they unusually difficult to anesthetize.
Since PCRM began its campaign, Newman says OHSU has received 1171 emails concerning the lab, which is part of a larger course titled “Systems, Processes and Homeostasis.” In the past two weeks alone, 368 people have emailed the Medical School.
In this age of technology OHSU should be using modern tools like computer models, MRI’s, human genome, stem cell, and human cadavers for teaching. The science of using pigs and monkeys as a replica for humans is archaic, expensive, cruel, and irrelevant with today
In this age of technology OHSU should be using modern tools like computer models, MRI’s, human genome, stem cell, and human cadavers for teaching. The science of using pigs and monkeys as a replica for humans is archaic, expensive, cruel, and irrelevant with today
Ivy league medical schools don’t use animals for this class, so there’s no reason Wisconsin should.
Ninette, unfortuntely computers models, stem cells and the human genome project don’t help young doctors learn about surgery and to have the tactile experience of learning how to navigate through the body of a living organism. No one in the medical would ever suggest this.
Society expects young physicians to train with books, computers, and practice. But every doctor has to have a first case–who will it be? If students aren’t allowed to work with animal models, will they be as prepared to work on someone in your family?
If you were a new surgeon’s first real patient, would you want them to have just trained on a computer? If you’re not willing to participate in training of a doctor, who should society pick? Physicians must be trained somehow.
The figure you site about 96 medical schools discontinuing the use of animals is a complete myth! Whether it’s in the standard practice of the first 4 years of medical school, I do not know. But every surgery residency requires doctors to put IVs, angioplasty, and conduct other surgeries on animals before they are allowed to touch their knife to a human. Most medical students participate in some sort of extracurricular research, often times involving animals.
Ethical considerations are important, and society should understand the importance of animal studies in the development of therapies and delivery of care.
I’m sorry, Billy, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The OHSU course in question is not a surgical residency. It’s a physiology/pharmacology course for first-year students. The overwhelming majority of U.S. medical schools do not use animals in such classes. Check out this recent New York Times piece on the subject: http://tinyurl.com/2xuu9m.
If you don’t believe the NYT, then I challenge you to find evidence that more than 10 medical schools in the country use animals in such labs. In other words, support your argument with some kind of actual evidence.
The fact are clear: OHSU is using and killing animals to convey basic concepts that most medical schools teach in a more humane manner.