PETA says over 10,000 goats are mutilated and killed every year as part of the US Coast Guard’s medical trauma training.
Hours after the activist group released a whistleblower video, graphically documenting goats' legs being chopped off with tree trimmers, the Coast Guard responded via Associated Press defending the practice, saying the trauma training was invaluable for combat and non-combat situations.
AP says several branches of the military use these methods on goats and pigs to train medics for battlefield casualties, even though some medical professionals say this cruelty is completely unnecessary because human simulation models work just as well. Furthermore, says PETA, the practice violates DOD policy, as well as the Animal Welfare Act.
Though Bob Filner (D-CA) has introduced legislation to phase out this practice, AP says he's faced fierce opposition” from the DOD.
Help show DOD what fierce opposition really looks like. Tell them to end this barbaric butchering at once.
We, the undersigned, find the Coast Guards mutilation of live animals beyond barbaric.
In addition to other medical professionals’ protests of the practice, Dr. Michael P. Murphy, associate professor of surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, told the Associated Press that this kind of training, involving amputating goat legs, does not carry over to working on human limbs - it “does not help prepare medical providers to treat an anatomically different human being wounded on the battlefield.” He says he supports PETA’s request for an end to this cruel practice.
So do we. We ask that you not wait for the success of Filner's legislation, which AP says you have so fiercely opposed. We ask that you end this mutilation and killing of live animals immediately.
Thank you for your serious and immediate attention to these concerns.
