Ban the military’s use of live animals in combat training

Caring for those who protect our freedoms abroad is no small task – that's why it's essential that the U.S. military's medical personnel receive the best medical training available. Unfortunately, the U.S. military is still using live animals for combat trauma training. This leads to barbaric practices like amputating live goats' legs one by one to cause severe hemorrhaging, cutting open pigs' throats to create a surgical airway, and inserting plastic tubes between pigs' ribs to practice medical procedures involving chest cavities.

Not only are these methods cruel to animals – they do not accurately prepare medical personnel to operate on real soldiers. Human-based simulators are the humane, more anatomically-correct alternative to clinical training. Last year, The Battlefield Excellence through Superior Training Practices Act*, which would require only human-based methods for training members of the Armed Forces, was introduced in Congress. The bill must pass the committee that you lead, the Committee on Armed Services, before the House or Senate may approve it. Both as a matter of troop readiness and humane medical practice, we urge you support this important act.

*http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr1417/text