August, 20 2009, 03:18pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Shalin Gala 757-622-7382
PETA Releases Graphic Photos of Animals Used in Military Trauma Training Exercises
Group Posts Photos on New Site, Urges Department of Defense to Ban Cruel Exercises in Which Animals Are Shot, Stabbed, Burned, Poisoned, and Have Their Limbs Amputated
WASHINGTON
PETA has launched a new Web site on which it is showing horrific
photos of animals who have been abused and killed in cruel training
procedures. The exercises were conducted by Deployment Medicine
International, a Gig Harbor, Wash. based military contractor that has
refused to allow news reporters to photograph animals who are used in
trauma training. Visitors to PETA.org/trauma
are asked to urge the Department of Defense (DoD) to replace the use of
animals in trauma training exercises with sophisticated, effective
non-animal methods.
The photos show pigs suffering from gaping, bloody wounds and a goat
with a bloody stump where his leg had been amputated. Every year,
monkeys are poisoned with chemicals and thousands of live goats and
pigs are shot, stabbed, cut apart, burned, and have their limbs cut off
in trauma training exercises, even though DoD regulations state that non-animal methods must be used whenever they are available.
PETA has provided the DoD with information on non-animal methods and
has urged the more than 17 military bases and four private contract
facilities that perform these deadly procedures to investigate why
available non-animal methods aren't being used.
The Air Force Expeditionary Medical Skills Institute, the Navy
Trauma Training Center, and the majority of civilian trauma training
programs do not perform these outdated, cruel exercises.
PETA's request that the DoD switch to the use of high-tech human
patient simulators is supported by the American Medical Student
Association and the medical counsel for the Iraq War Veterans
Organization, among others, and 15 members of Congress have signed a
letter to the Army supporting the use of non-animal methods for trauma
training.
"The military stabs and shoots animals out of the public eye," says
PETA Vice President Kathy Guillermo. "We're confident that people who
see this cruelty for themselves will join us in demanding that the
military abandon these crude, archaic exercises in favor of modern and
humane non-animal methods."
To see photos of trauma training, please visit PETA.org.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), with more than 2.0 million members and supporters, is the largest animal rights organization in the world. PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.
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