Animal advocacy groups are planning three days of protests at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
The problem? The use of live dogs in a lab for first-year medical students.
From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Sixty dogs are scheduled to be killed as part of a first-year medical school physiology lab that begins Monday at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Additional labs are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Wisconsin Humane Society and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an animal advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., are coordinating a large protest for Monday on the medical school grounds. They will stage smaller protests for Tuesday and Wednesday.
They hope to persuade medical students to opt out of the lab.
...Attendance at the laboratory is optional and not recorded, said Richard Katschke, associate vice president of public affairs at the Medical College. Twelve of the 204 first-year medical students have already officially opted out.
The college will go into "lockdown" Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, only allowing employees, students and registered guests into the building. Some doors will be staffed by security guards, and others will be locked.
...Although many medical schools once used live dogs to teach human physiology, pharmacology or surgery, only two U.S. medical schools still do, according to the Physicians Committee: the Medical College of Wisconsin and the New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. And only one of the top 20 rated medical schools - Washington University Medical School in St. Louis - still uses any live animals, according to the committee.
Clearly, this article is very slanted.
It fails to present the reason that the school has the lab. It fails to explain what happens to the dogs.
All it does is announce that sixty dogs are scheduled to be killed at the Medical College this week.
To provide balance, here is some information from the other side of the issue:
The cardiovascular laboratory for first-year medical students at the Medical College of Wisconsin provides students with an exceptional learning experience. It brings together all of the information they have learned in their coursework to date, and applies that knowledge in a real-life situation. It is the only opportunity that students will have in their medical education to experience the cardiovascular function of a large animal with similar responses as humans before they begin clinical work with patients. The use of live animals in this course is strongly endorsed by the American Physiological Society.
The JS article makes it sound like the Medical College of Wisconsin is hanging on to a practice not recommended or beneficial for students, a pointless killing of animals.
The reader isn't informed that the "use of live animals in this course is strongly endorsed by the American Physiological Society."
The laboratory experience involves the use of dogs. All animals are treated humanely and are fully anesthetized during this laboratory. The cardiovascular system of a dog is remarkably similar to that of humans. That is why so many medical advances in cardiac care and our understanding of the cardiovascular system of humans are traced to medical research using dogs.
The animals are treated humanely and fully anesthetized.
That's important.
One would think that the protests are being staged because the animals are experiencing pain.
Furthermore, it should be remembered that the Wisconsin Humane Society regularly is forced to put down dogs and other animals.
Animals are euthanized because they are unwanted. There are too many animals and not enough homes.
So, the WHS is protesting the Medical College for doing what it routinely does. Moreover, when the WHS kills animals, future doctors aren't being educated to treat human beings and save lives.
The dogs used in the lab are purchased from a licensed, USDA vendor. None of the dogs have been pets and would have been euthanized, if not made available for this course.
Here is another critical piece of information.
The dogs haven't been pets and they would be euthanized anyway if they weren't used in the lab.
The article doesn't say that.
More facts about what happens to the dogs in the lab:
Dogs are humanely treated and are under heavy anesthesia at all times during the lab. The animals do not suffer nor are they ever conscious. They are anesthetized by veterinarians and professional staff members before the students enter the laboratory. At the completion of the lab, the dogs are euthanized with an overdose of anesthesia.
It's evident that the Medical College isn't just engaging in some sort of animal cruelty exercise.
The dogs are serving an important purpose in the students' coursework.
Most important, these are dogs that would be euthanized if they were used in the lab or not.
In a real sense, the Wisconsin Humane Society is organizing a protest of one of its own procedures.
That doesn't make sense.
When the animal advocacy groups finish their protest at the Medical College, they should head over to the Humane Society and protest there for its practice of killing dogs.
I'm not writing this as an advocate for the use of animals in medical training and experiments as much as I'm pointing out the double standard applied by the protesters.
Another thing that came to mind--
In the case of EMBRYONIC stem cell research, proponents often use the excuse that the embryos would be destroyed anyway. That's supposed to make it morally acceptable.
Since those human lives would be tossed out as garbage, the EMBRYONIC stem cell supporters claim that those worthless embryos should be put to use to find treatments and cures for diseases and disorders.
Well, in the case of the dogs, they are going to be put down anyway. Why not use them to give medical students a valuable learning experience?
It makes me wonder how many of the protesters that will descend on the Medical College are supporters of EMBRYONIC stem cell research.
How many support silencing a beating heart through abortion?
_____________________
I love animals. I've adopted pets from the Humane Society. I support the Wisconsin Humane Society with significant financial contributions every year.
As much as I adore and want to protect God's creatures, there's a dramatic qualitative difference between an animal and a human being.
6 comments:
I'm GLAD you pointed out that it's ok to destroy a HUMAN LIFE....BUT NO....let's not touch the DOGS.....
Sometimes I get baffled by these things....
I will also comment and suggest that EVERYONE go out and rent/buy and watch the movie "Something the Lord Made", starring Alan Rickman and Mos Def.....in it...they would NEVER have found the solution of open heart surgery had they NOT used dogs for their research. This, by the way, is, if not one of, the BEST Alan Rickman movies he has made.
Terrific movie, Pete!
I love animals, and I could never be a doctor, don't like blood, or innerds for that matter. But does that mean that animals that are going to be put down anyway not be used to save humans? The ASPCA has gone so far left, I can't even donate to them anymore.
This is taken from a previous article in the Journal Sentinel last year. Please read it carefully. The dealer is a random source dealer - meaning the animals could have been someone's pet at sometime...
Schroeder (the person who supplies the dogs to MCW) is a designated USDA Registered Random Source Class B Animal Dealer, meaning he has permission to deal dogs that he gets from "random" sources, including pounds, flea markets and newspaper ads. He can sell them to research institutions, veterinary schools and, in this case, a medical school.
Schroeder, who is based in Wells, Minn., said he deals only with dogs he has bred or has received from acquaintances. He would not divulge his client list or the price he demands for a dog. He also wouldn't reveal the price he pays to purchase his dogs, though he said sometimes he loses money on them.
Even if it's true that a dog used by the medical college may have been someone's pet at one time, that dog was no longer wanted by its owner.
It's not as if Schroeder slips into backyards and steals beloved family pets to sell to the medical college.
Anyway, the point of my post really was what I consider to be society's alarming disregard for HUMAN life.
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