A study recently published in Academic Medicine found that the number of medical schools using dogs in classroom training continues to decline as does the number of schools using any live animals in laboratory training.
The survey of medical schools found that just 32 percent still used live animals in laboratory training of 2001. That’s down from 73 percent in 1985.
There are several reasons for the decline including pressure from animal rights activists, the fact that live animals are expensive to use, and alternatives to live animals have made significant progress over the last 20 years.
But can a medical student receive all the training he needs from non-animal alternatives? Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center physiology professor says no,
The experience [of training with a live animal] cannot be substituted by any computer simulation. Can a computer simulate how much pressure to put on a bleeding artery? Can it help you understand pain and evaluate the level of anesthesia needed?
Dr. Lawrence Hansen, co-author of the study, argues that the value of the live animal has to be weighed against the costs, including the welfare of the animal,
Does the dog have any value at all? If the dog was a block of wood, I’d say go ahead and do this. But we have to do a cost-benefit analysis. It’s a lifetime of caging, followed by vivisection, and then euthanasia. And that’s a high ethical cost for the dog to pay
Hansen is the spokesman for Doctors Against Dog Labs, a group that wants an end to the use of dogs in medical training. In essay at that group’s web site, Hansen writes,
When I compare dog and human brains the similarities far outnumber the differences. It’s true dogs have smaller frontal lobes, which explains their lack of inhibition (e.g., butt sniffing) and unfortunately also accounts for their poor judgment in relying on the kindness of humans. But the very similarities that make dogs “good models” for human physiology and pharmacology labs are good reasons why we shouldn’t be killing creatures so like ourselves.
Because dogs and humans are more alike than different we should treat dogs more like we would want to be treated ourselves. During a particularly awful moment in his tragedy, King Lear despairs, “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods! They kill us for their sport!” Well, that may or may not be true of the gods or of God, but to dogs we humans are gods. We made them what they are through millennia of selective breeding until they became the perfect companion animal — loyal, loving, devoted. They only want to please us. It is a betrayal of trust and of the bond between men and dogs to so casually kill them for minuscule educational benefit. We can and should choose to be merciful gods, unlike those tormenting Lear for sport, or boys pulling the wings off flies.
Well if the trend Hansen reports on continues, it looks like he’ll get his wish.
Source:
Med Schools Are Phasing Out Use of Dogs in Training Doctors. Bruce Taylor Seeman, Newhouse News Service, April 3, 2003.
Why Not Kill Dogs? Lawrence Hansen.
UCSD’s use of live dogs in lab decried. Cheryl Clark, San Diego Union-Tribune, February 12, 2003.