PETA protests Fort Bragg’s use of live animals for training medics

Samantha Adler and Lisbet Chitiboga stabbed and used tree trimmers to inflict injury on the goat, lying in a pool of blood atop a table outside Fort Bragg’s Honeycutt Road gate Thursday afternoon.

The life-sized stuffed toy goat wasn’t in any pain, and the blood was fake.

That’s unlike what PETA demonstrators say happens in military training —when live goats are used to provide lifelike practice for field medics.

About 10 demonstrators drove from Norfolk, Virginia, on Thursday to stage a demonstration against Fort Bragg’s practice of using live animals for medical training purposes.

“Several military facilities have already phased out this process,” said Tricia Lebkuecher , a PETA campaigner and spokeswoman. “It’s time for Fort Bragg to join the rest of the Armed Forces and start using more effective, more cost efficient and more humane human simulators.”

PETA has held protests at military installations throughout the country this week, which is World Week for Animals in Laboratories, Lebkuecher said.

A second goal is drumming up support for the Battlefield Excellence through Superior Training Practices Act, bipartisan legislation that would force the military and the Department of Defense to stop using live animals and begin using simulators, she said.

Goats and other animals are used on post for teaching field medics how to deal with traumatic injuries, said Tom McCollum, a Fort Bragg spokesman.

The animals, which are purchased from vendors, are given anesthesia to prevent pain and are euthanized when training is complete, he said.

Studies have shown that training on live animals is more effective than using a human simulator, McCollum said.

Lebkuecher disagrees.

“Military medical research shows that maiming and dismembering animals is an inferior way of preparing our troops to handle injuries on the battlefield,” she said.

Medics taking part in the training say they find using live animals to be more realistic and rewarding, according to McCollum.

“The students say they get more out of the use of live tissue,” he said. “They can save a life and not a machine.”

The Department of Defense has set out guidelines for the use of live animals, McCollum said, but it also urges the use of simulators whenever possible.

The guidelines call for a reduction in the use of live animals, reducing suffering with painkillers and humane euthanasia techniques, using simulators rather than live animals and to act responsibly throughout procedures.

Lebkuecher is optimistic that all military installations will stop using live animals for medical training.

“Several military facilities in the United States have stopped using animals,” she said, “and 80 percent of our NATO allies and nearly every medical school in the United States uses high-tech simulators.”

There are no plans for any changes at Fort Bragg, McCollum said.

Until the DOD comes up with a simulator that can provide the same type of training, McCollum said, Fort Bragg will continue to use live animals.

“We have no choice.”

Staff writer Nancy McCleary can be reached at nmccleary@fayobserver.com or 486-3568.