HONOLULU —  The Army says it's critical to saving the lives of wounded soldiers. Animal-rights activists call the training cruel and outdated.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,385545,00.html

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HONOLULU —  The Army says it's critical to saving the lives of wounded soldiers. Animal-rights activists call the training cruel and outdated.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,385545,00.html[/quote]

The Army has used what they call "live tissue training" for years.  First it was dogs, then the SPCA got involved and it was switched to goats.  As one that has participated in this training many times as both a trainee and an instructor I am here to tell you there is no substitute for it! 

I am surprised that they are using pigs.  They are much more expensive than goats though actually in certain ways they would be better for training purposes.  One of the problems with goats is that they are a ruminant (having multiple stomachs) and thus their physiology is somewhat different than that of a human.  For example, you can't give antibiotics PO (by mouth) to a ruminant because it will kill the bacteria they rely on for digestion.  Pigs have a digestive track very similar to a humans, just as dogs do.

One good thing about using goats for patients was that the suckers have little will to live.  They give up real easy generally and so it makes the trainee work that much harder to keep them alive.  In all my training experiance in this kind of thing I can only remember on goat that went down due to injury or illness getting back up.

Of course PETA would object to any animal being used for such training under any conditions since they seem to value animal life more than human, that is, if the human life is not their own.

De Oppresso Liber

I was an SF medic (first a 91B with an "S" skill identifier and then an 18D when SF got it's own CMF) and we used goats, or more properly "caprines" for patients when I went through 300f1 andd extensivly at med lab in 1980. And that was the "animal model" we used the whole time I was in.  We used them when I was an instructor at SOMED and when I went through the SF medic portion of the SF ANCOC in 1990. But back in the 60s they used dogs for the same training.  I had been told about the dogs from many older SF medics and seen pics one had from the training back then. 

To this day I HATE goats!  A couple years ago I was looking through some duffle bags of stuff I still have from when I was in.  Down in the bottom of one of those duffle bags was a rolled up black belt as one wears with his fatigues.  It still smelled like a damned goat! Some things you just can't get that distinctive musky smell out of.

De Oppresso Liber

The hippo is unpredictable and aggressive with old scars and fresh, deep wounds providing signs of daily fights that are accompanied by much bellowing, neighing and snorting.

"...my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me." He added, after a pause, looking me full in the face: "That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave"

General "Stonewall" Jackson