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TechnoratiMilitary Used Pigs in Blasts to Test Armor
WASHINGTON - Military researchers have dressed live pigs in body armor and strapped them into Humvee simulators that were then blown up with explosives to study the link between roadside bomb blasts and brain injury.
![[(Charlie Neibergall / AP file)
]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/pigs_blasts.jpg "pigs_blasts.jpg")
For an 11-month period that ended in December, researchers subjected pigs and rats to about 200 blasts, according to Pentagon documents and interviews. The explosions have ranged in intensity, wounding some of the pigs and killing others. Roadside bombs are the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The research on pigs has determined that body armor does not worsen brain injury, said Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which conducted the study. The military feared body armor would deflect the force of blasts toward the head and increase the risk of brain injury.
The research also shows that body armor protects troops' lungs and is critical to surviving blasts.
"If use of animal subjects in testing results in our ability to save lives or prevent injury to our troops, we're confident this is the right thing to do," Walker said. Pigs without body armor died from blasts within 24 to 48 hours, while those with armor survived "significantly higher blasts," she said.
Blasting pigs raises "red flags," said Martin Stephens, vice president for animal research issues at the Humane Society of the United States.
"This is a worthy goal, trying to prevent soldiers from being injured by roadside bombs," Stephens said. "I think the relevance of this is highly questionable. People are not pigs."
Col. Geoffrey Ling, who led the study, said pigs are good subjects because their brains are more similar to human brains than those of rats. Pig hearts and lungs are also similar to humans'.
The Pentagon complied with policies that ensure that a minimal number of animals were used in the testing and that they were treated humanely at all times, Walker said.
Scientists discovered details that will help protect troops, said Michael Leggieri, director of the Pentagon's Blast Injury Research Program. "The bottom line to everything we do in this program is to protect the soldier," he said.
DARPA declined to say where the tests had taken place. The next round of the testing is scheduled for later this year.
Stephens called on the Pentagon to end testing on pigs. "Is this the best they can do after several years of losing soldiers to roadside bombs?" he said.
U.S. car companies used live animals, including pigs, for crash tests until the early 1990s. They stopped after protests from animal rights groups, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
26 Comments so far
Show AllTHAT"S IT..... I'm cancelling my subscription to the human race... I am now a bunny/bird.
"Col. Geoffrey Ling, who led the study, said pigs are good subjects because their brains are more similar to human brains than those of rats"
Some might argue about the point about this one.
This person must lack a vital component of what makes human beings human, or a piece of humanity for LEADING such a digusting display of NON-humanity. Whether or not the sentient being is a rat, a rabbit, a pig, or a monkey (or the odd human being or two or three), what indeed is lacking within Colonel Geoffrey Ling to NOT see the horror of his thinking? And who are the others who took part in this absurd experiment?
Here is his contact information. Be my guest:
COL Geoffrey Ling, M.D., Ph.D. (571) 218-4674 geoffrey.ling@darpa.mil
Is death and suffering all these sadistic bastards think about? How to do it? What to do it to? Here's a novel idea: let's stop all killing.
No, I don't do BBQ's.
I recommended using reporters and saving the pigs for a BBQ. Guess none of you do BBQs.
I suppose this is at least a step up from doing military testing on Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans...
For more info on pig cruelty check out HBO's recent airing called "Death on a Factory Farm."
"The Military Used Pigs." My first thought was that the line was redundant. Then my spirit moved and my second thought was that the writer was carelessly making a slanderous reference to another species by unnecessarily linking it to the military. Like calling Bush a jackal for starting wars, approving torture or putting firecrackers in the rectums of live frogs. But upon reading it, my whole being wretches with disgust to find that the military demons under the lead of Col Jeffrey Ling blast animals to confirm what any idiot already knows ... that armor can provide protection from explosive devices. All this does is provide ghoulish entertainment for the sadist "researchers, who for whatever reason can't destroy human lives at the pace and level of gruesomeness they'd like to. Col. Jeffrey Ling is a disgrace to whatever sub-human species spawned him.
They've were using pigs in this manner in the 70's when my father worked for BRL.
Mighty American of you. Like it or not, there are those in the military who *gasp* aren't evil or as you put it, pigs. I find your characterization disgusting and think that it overrides any point you were trying to make.
What is disgusting is blowing up pigs wearing "body armor," for supposed research. If that is what passes for 'American' then this country has yet another reason to hang it's head in shame. Duh, body armor helps prevent certain types of injury. Now if the Pentagon will only supply our soldiers with more of it, since they obviously aren't leaving Iraq or Afghanistan any time soon.
Kinda reminds me of those "physicians" employed over at Gitmo who "observed" the effects of torture on the human body--with the predicted results of course. How wonderful that all of this military research is truly helping humanity.
First, you don't know my nationality. But if it were American, *gasp* I'd have the basic human decency not to defend it, with any adjective remotely resembling "mighty." "Contrite" or "sorry-assed sonofabitch," might be the first step in the right direction. Second, I didn't slander pigs by comparing them to America's military demons. Third, any characterization of the American military as being repugnant to its malignant core, is the point I'm trying to make, so how could I possibly be overriding the point I'm trying to make by making it?
The notion that some deluded, sleepwalking, but otherwise potentially decent human beings might just now be waking up to find themselves in the all mercenary army and realize they're the blunt tools defending transnational corporate markets, and the spear point of unending American wars of aggression isn't an excuse to stay in. Nor is their mistake the last line of defense for your freedoms. It's the reason you lack them.
i admire you jhc.....................
"If use of animal subjects in testing results in our ability to save lives or prevent injury to our troops, we're confident this is the right thing to do," Walker said.
Well Jan Walker, maybe they can use your mother and see if you are still confident that's the right thing to do.
...THE defence against people who violently oppose you is to mitigate their grievance. Simple, no need to dress up pigs. Actually the animals already know this simple solution. I suppose the real intelegence hiarchy has both dogs and pigs above humans. Shame on our species.
"If use of animal subjects in testing results in our ability to save lives or prevent injury to our troops, we're confident this is the right thing to do"
If not sending troops into war in the first place saved lives and prevented injury, wouldn't that be the right thing to do?
This one really gets me: "The Pentagon complied with policies that ensure that a minimal number of animals were used in the testing and that they were treated humanely at all times, Walker said."
I'm having trouble understanding how dressing them up, putting them in hummers, then blowing them up, is humane.
That's not my definition of humane, nor of the right thing to do. I can't believe the sick shit that comes out of these people's mouths and I wonder what they had to do to get their minds wrapped around such obvious contradictions.
The madness of it is that the reason they give for using pigs is because they are most similar to humans. Just think about that for a second. If their brains are most like humans, they can suffer like humans too. We intentionally blow up these pigs when we know that they can suffer a great deal. Pigs are smarter than dogs and feel pain just like dogs. If they had used dogs in this experiment, it would have created a huge uproar. This goes for pigs raised for food as well. I don't know who suffers more, the poor pigs on factory farms or the ones used in this experiment.
...if pigs were really like us:
Some would dictate to the resentment of all.
Some would horde to the impoverishment of all.
Some would subjugate to the imprisionment of all.
Some would incite to the danger to all.
Jarhead
A great idea is to replace the helpless animals with Rightwingnut neo-nazi Republicans. Starting at the top.
I have no problem with that!
And a mighty bit of thanks to all the swine and other species who participated - I raise my fork with a bit of pork sausage on the end in silent prayer for their dedicated service.
...the pig-sausage is on the handle end of the fork!
EdgeCrusher, you need more intelligence than you have to even figure out which end of the fork you're on.
Kill, maim, cripple, mutilate, destroy, exterminate, pulverize, nuke, blast, bomb, dynamite: to this type of activity we devote the largest portion of the nation's budget, billions upon billions.
That's the height of civilization.
And then we go around shamelessly teaching other peoples how to behave according to the norms of the declaration of human rights, we the chief manufacturers of industrialized death.
In branch school for doctors in Fort Sam Houston during the Vietnam War, they would shoot live sheep through the hindquarters with an M-16 and give each of us one whose massive wounds we had to learn to debride and on which we did traechotomies on. The sheep were unconscious and we did learn. You wrestle with the ethics of that.
No wrestling required.
Simply change the emphasis of our education from causing problems and then ameliorating them with technical wizardry, to not causing the problems in the first place.
Stop fighting wars; stop living lives that need wars to defend them. Stop using products that cause cancer. Stop using products that cause ecological, cultural, and psychological destruction. Stop giving money to companies and an economy that consists almost entirely of turning living beings into dead things and real wealth into poison. Stop voting for politicians who refuse to support people by breaking up those companies, dismantling that economy and keeping economic and political democracy.