Animal Experimentation - Frequently Asked Questions: Don't surgeons train on animals before operating on humans?
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

AFMA Americans for Medical Advancement
March 2006

Don't surgeons train on animals before operating on humans?

Many surgeons do trials on pigs and other lab animals. Many other surgeons - both present day and past - have admitted that work on animals confuses procedures. Even with limited medical knowledge, common sense suggests that orthopedic surgeries will be much different in a dog, for example, than in a human. Ophthalmologists perfected radial keratotomy on rabbits, then tried them out on humans. Only after completely blinding several humans, did they finally correct the procedure.

The field of neurosurgery offers another example. Extracranial-intracranial (EC-IC) bypass procedures for inoperable carotid artery disease were tested and perfected on dogs and rabbits. Neurosurgeons performed thousands of EC-ICs before it was discovered the operation did more harm than good. More patients died or suffered strokes because of the operation than were saved as a result of it.

Transplantation surgeries are much the same story. Hundreds and hundreds of cats, dogs, pigs and primates have been sacrificed as surgeons tried to fashion surgeries that move organs from one creature to another. No matter the number of practice surgeries on animals, the first human operations fail. Carrying the animal data over to the human body always proves deceiving. Only conducting procedures on humans provides dependable techniques.

Go on to Animal Experimentation: Frequently Asked Questions: Don't all doctors support the concept of animal experimentation?

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