Human-Based "Military Training" Methods
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org
FROM
Physicians Committee
September 2012
[Ed. Note: Ask Congress to End the Military's War on Animals, Support H.R. 4269, the BEST Practices Act
- Action Alert 10/7/10. Also read Human-Based "Military Training" Methods
II]
Because widely validated and accepted nonanimal alternatives for chemical
casualty management and combat trauma training courses exist, there is no
justification for the use of live animals for these training purposes.
Chemical Casualty Management Training
Superior nonanimal, human-based training methods exist that could immediately
replace the use of vervet monkeys in the U.S. Army’s “Chemical Casualty
Resuscitation Practical Exercise.”
- Researchers with the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps and Israel’s Carmel
Medical Center have developed a nonanimal training curriculum for the medical
management of patients exposed to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The
course includes lectures, simulation training, and the use of moulage, in which
actors with applied makeup mimic the symptoms of chemical warfare casualties.
- John Pawlowski, M.D., Ph.D., director of anesthesia at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center in Boston and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, has
organized numerous scenarios that simulate mass casualty incidents and nerve gas
attacks. These scenarios use human patient simulators, which mimic human
responses to biological and nerve agents—including physostigmine—and moulage.
Similar models are used at medical centers across the United States to prepare
personnel for mass casualty incidents in the case of a terrorist attack.
Combat Trauma Training
At least three different approaches to combat trauma training are necessary
because different types of skills and levels of knowledge are required of three
distinct groups. In each case, human-based training methods could replace the
use of goats and pigs.
- Physicians and Physician Assistants: The most important elements
of combat trauma training for physicians and physician assistants are
realism, human-specific injuries and treatments, volume of trauma exposure,
and team building. The ideal trauma and casualty training method is exposure
to real injuries in humans, such as that provided by the participation of
U.S. military medical teams at high-volume trauma centers. The Army Trauma
Training Center has been described as providing “exposure to a high volume
of traumatic injuries that closely mimic those seen on the battlefield.”
In addition, the Air Force’s Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness
Skills (C-STARS) program exemplifies how effective trauma training can be
achieved by combined use of simulators, human cadavers, and civilian trauma
centers. At centers in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Baltimore, C-STARS courses
teach chest tube insertion using simulators, fasciotomy using cadavers, and
a number of other procedures using live human patients who enter trauma
centers with severe injuries.
- Medics and Corpsmen: The re-creation of battlefield scenarios
remains an integral element to the training of medics and corpsmen. The
ideal training paradigm for medics and corpsmen combines simulation tools,
immersive simulated environments, and civilian trauma center training. The
use of live animals is inferior to simulation for specific skills training
and inferior to trauma centers for human-specific training similar to the
battlefield experience.
The U.S. Army’s own Combat Trauma Patient Simulator has been described as
“simulating, replicating, and assessing battlefield injuries by type and
category such as hemorrhaging, fractures, amputations, and burns; monitoring
the movement of casualties on the battlefield; capturing the time of patient
diagnosis and treatment; comparing interventions and outcomes ateach
military healthcare service delivery level.”
- Infantry: In the absence of a medic or corpsman, an infantryman’s
job is to control hemorrhaging, stabilize soldiers who have sustained
injuries, and generally render care at the scene of the injury—likely while
still under hostile fire. Optimal first responder training for infantry
includes the use of simulators such as Laerdal’s SimMan, CHI Systems’ HapMed
limb simulator, and/or other simulators. These human anatomy-appropriate
teaching methods can be used in conjunction with simulation of austere
battlefield environments.
Return to Animal Rights Articles
Read more at Alternatives to Animal Testing, Experimentation and Dissection