E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSAn animal rights group's release of a video showing a goat's legs being removed with what appear to be tree trimmers has prompted the Coast Guard to defend the use of live animals in combat medical training.
The Coast Guard said it could not verify that the video posted on YouTube by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on Wednesday involved its personnel, The Associated Press reported. But the AP reported that Lt. Cmdr. Jamie C. Frederick, spokesman for the Atlantic area, wrote in an email that the Coast Guard does use "live tissue training using live animals."
The animals appear to be anesthetized in the video, which was purportedly shot in Virginia Beach, Va. In addition to the use of tree trimmers, instructors stab the animals with scalpels and pull out internal organs -- which a narrator and a PETA blog post say was done to simulate injuries. The blog post said that veterinarians who viewed the video said the animals' movements indicate that the goats may not have been adequately anesthetized. At one point, one of the men in video calls for more anesthesia.
PETA said the video was taken by a whistleblower and showed military instructors contracted by the Coast Guard. The faces of the participants are blurred.
Justin Goodman, PETA's associate director of lab investigations, told msnbc.com the group was able to verify the video's authenticity by checking the credentials of the person who leaked it and by cross-referencing the medical training company involved with government contracts.
Tens of thousands of people have responded to a plea on the group's website urging the Pentagon to stop the use of animals in medical trauma training, Goodman said.
"We're still waiting to get a response from the Coast Guard," Goodman said.
Other branches of the military use similar training on goats and pigs, the AP reported, to prepare medics and front-line troops for treating catastrophic injuries in the field of battle. The AP said the Pentagon declined to respond to a request for comment about the video.
"Animals used in trauma training are supported and monitored by well-trained, experienced veterinary staff to ensure that appropriate anesthesia and analgesia prevent them from experiencing pain or distress," Frederick wrote to the AP.
Graphic warning: Video in PETA blog post
He said the training has also proved invaluable in noncombat situations, such as when Coast Guard members were the first to respond to Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake, the AP reported.
But some medical professionals say the practice is cruel and unnecessary and have signed a letter, drafted by PETA, to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta seeking an end to the practice, the AP said.
"Learning how to apply a tourniquet on a severed goat's leg does not help prepare medical providers to treat an anatomically different human being wounded on the battlefield," Dr. Michael P. Murphy, an associate professor of surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves who served two tours of duty in Iraq, told the AP.
U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, a California Democrat, has introduced legislation, HR1417, to phase out use of live animals by the military in training. So far, he has 49 cosponsors. But he told the AP that he has faced opposition from the Defense Department.
PETA advocates the use of humanlike simulators for military training, like the one shown in this YouTube video.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- 'As lucky as you get': Cop stabbed in head survives
- Report: Bar hand questioned over missing Fort Bragg soldier
- 474-year-old painting stolen by Nazis given to heirs
- Three Secret Service agents out in sex scandal
Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook
Leave a Comment:
Totally disgusting if this is true.
Disgusting, but reasonable. Human lives are more important than animal lives in my view, and the view of most Americans. That doesn't mean that animal lives don't have value, just that systems which prioritize human lives are justified. This is one.
There's no substitute for this kind of training, real wounds on a real living animal. This training saves lives. It takes practice under real world stress and consequences to build the skills and confidence to make a good medic.
i would wager that most people who say this is barbaric are going to eat a steak or some chicken to night haha
and you would be wrong.
Wrong, I'm going to have lamb chops. And baby back ribs.
i was a combat life saver in the army and we never did anything like that i don't know about the actual combat medics training.
Not sure about now, but this used to be part of the advanced combat medic courses.
All in the name of research! I thought they used cadavers for medical science? Hhmmm?
Combat trauma training is a different thing. Cadavers don't bleed out if you don't act fast enough. Even ER training isn't the same thing, as ER doctors generally aren't being shot at while they work.
if this is true then the cold heart worthless bastards will never get my support again for anything EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then move to another country, these are the people being trained to go into combat and keep your sons and daughters alive when the S*@t hits the fan. Anything that can be done to further prepare them for their job is worth it.
Really John, If you are in need I hope they don't show up with a pair of tree trimmers.
The medics have to have something to work on, putting band-aids on little boo boos or fake wounds does nothing to truly prepare them for the reality of combat
Then be sure you never need to depend on them to save your life or that of a loved one!
I would trust most of them with mine or my loved ones lives, more so than I would with most doctors in a trauma situation.
John, you're really showing your ignorance. The technology that is currently available for medics to practice upon is extremely realistic and much more practical and useful than a goat or any other animal.
I know you think you understand the topic at hand but obviously you don't. Using outdated, unethical, barbaric means of training is simply unjustified and egregious!
so would they rather have them use live humans? you can't simulate a soldier bleeding out any other way
PETA. What a joke.
PETA = People Eating Tasty Animals :)
Yes with multiple combat tours as a combat medic and yes an animal or several probably died to provide the training needed to save your sorry ass I am sorry to say but it is a fact of life at this point in time and until they can provide a different realistic means of providing this training it is a needed part of the military
Not that I have seen to date they can't, oh you can have someone leaning over your shoulder going oh he is dead oh you saved him yeah with some fake casualty but that only goes so far. As you should know with being a supposed Marine in combat you can a die or your friends around you can and there are only two things that are going to save you when this happens and that is doc and god.
John, you are clearly a very ignorant and likely incompetent "combat medic"! It's obvious you're not current with the most up-to-date simulators and combat suits. I'm guessing you don't accept change well or adapt to new technology. Probably time for you to hang up your Private Candy Ass boots!
@Anesthesia doc I haven't been a private for over 25 years and as far as change I adapt extremely well to it but as far as the training I have been seeing given to new front line medics I have not been impressed they are not prepared for what is actually needed. so I am assuming you are the ignorant one and have never actually been involved in a true masscal situation or ever seen combat. I don't like this practice but I also know what it takes to provide the care needed simulators only do so much even with pilot they eventually have to get out of the simulator and do the real thing and I would prefer this not be done on humans I have seen to many medics not be able to properly handle there first patients we are talking about individuals that don't have the support of a full hospital or even an ambulance being required to provide care for a large number of individuals and expected to be able to do this from the start.
Are you kidding me? So cutting off their legs doesn't involve any pain or distress? Do they reattach them or what? There's no excuse for this. Torturing animals isn't going to do anyone any good.
If they're properly doped up, they don't even know what's happening to them. As for the results, I don't know. If the damage done is permanent (leg can't be re-attached), then I'd say slaughter them while they're out and sell the meat (if the drugs aren't a problem in the meat). If the damage is only temporary, nurture the animal, and only use each one for one training episode, then sell it to a farm (where it'll probably be slaughtered for meat eventually).
I HOPE YOU BASTARDS drown.
We are no different than those Japs killing whales for research. Also why were the faces blurred if they were doing the "right" thing. Bastards...
Yo
Who are you to call them japs.
The government is spending money on pointlessly killing goats, when there are hospitals with overflowing emergency rooms that could use military medic trainees to help injured people. This is a cruel, unnecessary, and monetarily wasteful exercise. If republicans can object to heath care on moral grounds, then I object to carving up live animals with my tax money. This is inane.
You can only work in a hospital if you are licensed in that state, when I was in the states did not recognize our training by the Federal government. Therefore we could not work in a civilian hospital. But I suppose you could just throw them in a hospital or in combat half trained and after they killed a few people trying to get it right they might learn.
Half trained? So patching up dying animals without expecting them to live is going to get them trained fully?
The object is to do everything to keep them alive with the injuries they have sustained, and as far as hospitals go most doctors are clueless when it comes to severe trauma because they have never been trained in it. In a combat environment you don't know how long it will take to get an evac for the patient it may be 7 minutes or 7 days until that point it is up to the medic to keep them alive.
@mePHDwee alright despite our rant in the post above I have to agree with you here.
mePhDwee,
I agree with you that this is a cruel and barbaric practice, but until technological analogues really are as good as the real thing (and I SERIOUSLY doubt they are today), this is less cruel and barbaric than sending medics into combat without proper training.
Oh, and this is a much nicer end for the goats then most of them would meet in the wild: disease, starvation, prolonged injury leading to disease, parasite infections, predators that will start eating you while you're still alive...
Lets start chopping off their legs with clippers and practice that way.
I don't agree with hurting animals either but unfortunately soldiers and medics are out there trying to save our children/brothers/fathers....etc. To get realistic results would you rather them practice on other humans? When you say you will not support them from now on make sure that you or someone you love will NEVER have to depend on any of these men/women for your freedom and/or safety (Coast Guard)..you may EAT the very words you typed.
If they want their personnel to train with combat-type injuries, assign them to emergency room duty at inner-city hospitals!
Unfortunately, that's not close enough. The ER doctors in the hospitals have the support of a full medical staff (admittedly an over-worked one), proper tools, a sterile environment, and they aren't being shot at or bombed while they work.
So... why not use cadavers? Or station CG members in level 1 Trauma centers for observation and later train them to be surgery techs.
There are so many other options. There is no excuse for this! I love the military and praise them for their actions defending the country, but you learn by situation. The sit there and do that to these animals is not normal and it shows the state of the world. Sick.
There are plenty of inmates in this country have life/death sentences that could be used for this purpose. That's one way for them to pay for their crimes!
As a career and retired Coastie, even I find this abhorrent and I would definitely question anything put out by PETA; they have been known to "doctor" things in the past. Coasties generally are not involved in situations where this type of training would be required or at least, if the video is in fact, uhm, fact, would not be CG sponsored; the CG might send people to the training but they wouldn't be the one's providing the "instructors"..so to speak. The CG uses the Public Health Service for their doctors.
there is no need for PETA to lie about animal cruelty because it is rampant. peta gets results and exposes souless practices from around the world and they have my support.
There are two 'victims' in this mess. Firstly, the animals that are being subjected to such unthinkable treatment when technology can surely be used for this training. And secondly, the US Coast Guard. As far as I know, the Coast Guard would rarely, if ever, be involved with front-line combat warfare, much less frequently enough to warrant such training. Perhaps there would be value for combat troops who might face such atrocities. But it doesn't seem likely that CG corpsmen would ever need such training.
life is significant and each creation has a specific purpose in the world. to inflict pain and suffering under any condition is unacceptable. my father fought in wwii, korean war, vietnam war, oss intelligence officer, and served in germany during cold war. he never needed to dismember or inflict pain to learn to train for combat. i worked in a hospital. i did not have to dismember or murder to work among the sick. the defense department needs a house cleaning and cob web cleaning. because their voices are not heard by them does not mean that the rest of the world does not hear. simulation is simulation not mutilation. grow up. learn to respect, love, and care for the things in life. you people sicken me for your ignorance and justification for cruelty and pain. may the boomerang of justice be yours.
LMAO at the people mad over this. One of your relatives was saved cause of experiments like this most likely.
Linda Ann Reynolds, Ed.S.
Were you trained for Combat trauma.....Nope
Was your dad a Combat medic..... Nope
PETA is a joke. The day I see a PETA person throw blood on a 300lb Biker instead of a 80lb model maybe ill gain respect you bunch of pansy far left pos.