***
Scott Evil: I was thinking I like animals. Maybe I’d be a vet.
Dr. Evil: An evil vet?
— Austin Powers***
I never really thought about it, but I always assumed there weren’t any “evil” vets out there and Mike Myers as Dr. Evil in the movie Austin Powers was pretty funny when he suggested it. I assume that most veterinarians are motivated by their compassion for animals, but that’s a little naive of me considering that the veterinary and medical industries are based on cruelty to laboratory animals. But this made my stomach turn — I couldn’t even read much of it, but it basically details how veterinary schools offer a surgery elective that involves taking perfectly healthy (live) dogs, using them as vivisection subjects, and euthanizing them after their internal organs have been destroyed by scalpels. I’d actually heard they do something like this at U Penn, but I figured it was an isolated incident or blown out of proportion. Apparently not.
I’m glad to see that Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine (after a NEAVS campaign) has stopped dicing up dogs and killing them. Can you believe veterinary students in the other 26 veterinary schools in the U.S. do this? You’d think veterinary students, like Scott Evil, would go into veterinary medicine because they like animals, and thus would like dogs too much to do this sort of thing to them, but no . . .
Here is the article:
Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and NEAVS Announce End to Terminal Surgical Lab Elective at Veterinary School
 NEAVS’ veterinary education program. |
Grafton, MA - The Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine (TUSVM), Grafton, MA, yesterday (Feb. 8, 2000) announced plans that will end terminal dog lab as an elective for third-year veterinary students in the coming academic year. The announcement came after a focused year-long collaborative effort with the New England Anti-Vivisection Society (NEAVS), one of the country’s oldest animal advocacy organizations.
Tufts becomes the first of the nation’s 27 veterinary schools to announce plans to eliminate all terminal labs (wherein healthy animals are used for surgical training and then euthanized at the end of the class) on all species.
“This step is the culmination of a series of efforts since 1989 to provide top quality veterinary surgical training while at the same time promoting the humane treatment of animals,” said Gary Patronek, head of Tufts’ Center for Animals and Public Policy.
“NEAVS has always believed in education as the way to create a compassionate ethic to animals,” said NEAVS President Theodora Capaldo, EdD. “By working collaboratively, by keeping the dialogue open, and by providing substantive research and alternatives, NEAVS and Tufts have created an ethical surgery curriculum that will result in a better world for veterinary students and the animals in their care.
Patronek added, “By increasing surgical opportunities at area shelters and our own spay/neuter clinic, we are able to provide students with a challenging surgical experience that builds confidence and provides an excellent way of learning the fundamentals of good surgical technique. After a period of evaluation, Tufts has found no distinguishable difference in the skill-level between students who have or have not taken the elective surgical lab. This has been supported through post-graduate employer feedback,” he said.
“NEAVS used a reasonable, educationally grounded approach to back up its ethical argument against killing animals in veterinary teaching and training,” said Capaldo. “Animal advocates and veterinary students seeking a superior and ethically sound surgical training experience should all be gratified by Tufts’ decision, and by NEAVS’ commitment to achieving positive change.”
As part of its work with Tufts, NEAVS provided books and alternatives to the use of animals for educational purposes. NEAVS also pioneered, and now coordinates, a Veterinary Education Program so that Tufts students who requested to participate would receive a meticulously crafted and carefully supervised surgical experience. Students in the week-long program spay/neuter and perform necessary surgeries such as bone repairs on abandoned dogs and abandoned or feral cats.
NEAVS and Tufts are at the forefront of responding to the ethical concerns of students and the public nationwide. The change underway at Tufts is part of a growing call for reform sweeping the country, Capaldo noted. She added, “We understand the need to prepare students to be outstanding veterinarians and we at NEAVS salute Tufts’ leadership on the important ethics issue and are hopeful that other schools will follow suit. The commitment and cooperation shown by NEAVS and Tufts in moving surgical training forward is setting a new standard for ethical education everywhere.”
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Jesus loves dogs dead or not
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:36 pm
hey dicing up dos is mean and stuff
Emily
October 24th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Well, I’m not sure if this is a real comment or a spam thing, but I agree, dicing up dogs is mean.
ashley mcfee
December 18th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Wow that’s cruel.
Mary Kooney
March 29th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I am a current veterinary student and understand that the junior jurgery sounds very cruel to you. But in actuality it is the most humane way to benefit all animals treated by veterinarians. All dogs that go through junior surgery are dogs that our selfish, wasteful society has slated to die already. Over populated animal shelters, terrible puppie mills, and research communities have thousands of dogs every put to death because nobody wants them anymore. We as veterinarians know how terrible ti is to waste any animals life. Junior surgery gives these dogs a little longer life by taking them in and allowing the vet students to play and interact with them but instead of simply killing them we will anesthesize them just as you would if you were going thru surgery, during which they are not aware of their surrounds or any pain. Surgical proceedures that we need to master so we will be able to save your pet one day are then preformed on the anesthesized dogs. When the surgery is completed we then increased the anesthetic dose so body functions slow and the heart stops. The dogs never feel any pain and we don’t ever wake them up from invasive proceedures to study recovery (that is cruel). We simply euthanize them as society would have done anyway but we don’t waste their lives we learn from them so we can then go on to halp other dogs and cats with those learned surgeries after we graduate. Not only do we prevent wasteful death students are allowed to adopt any dogs that they feel should have been adopted or were not given a chance, one of which I adopted. So I ask you, should society throw dogs away with no thought or should we strive to stop over population and ignorant breeding but in the meantime learn from the animals that have been fated to die. Would you like me to learn surgery on a sick, poorly treated dog, that was going to be killed by the local shelter or on your dog after I graduate. Very few of the veterinary schools in the country have terminal surgery programs left but the consequences are being seen more and more when young graduate get hired and can’t perform basic surgeries such as fixing a broken leg or removing a foreign body from your animals GI tract. So before you pass judgement please know the whole story.
Emily
March 30th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Dear Mary,
Thank you for commenting on this post. I’m always glad to hear from veterinary students/veterinarians. However, when I read your comment, I found it offended me for a number of reasons. I’m sure you’re a great person, but I think we have fundamentally different opinions on a number of things.
First, I found it offensive because I feel like I’m reading a Nazi medical researcher’s explanation for why Nazi medical researchers tortured and murdered thousands of Jewish/Gypsy/other “unwanted” people. I don’t see unwanted dogs as sacrificial animals inferior to wanted dogs — I see them as just as good as wanted dogs. I think it’s people who are the problem – people who breed these dogs that aren’t wanted, and who don’t insist their political representatives pass laws that are stricter about puppy mills and people abandoning their dogs. These unwanted dogs should NOT be punished for bad people.
Did you know that a lot of Nazi medical research was incredibly informative in terms of human medicine? Do you have any idea how much of an advancement of science using people as experimental subjects is for human medicine? Really, from a purely objective standpoint, we should use unwanted humans as surgical subjects. I’m completely serious about this. We could advance human surgery to incredible new levels by doing so — by harming the few, we could save the many. But we don’t, because from an ethical standpoint, torturing people in the name of medicine is horrifying. (Not that we haven’t in the past. Not just Nazi doctors. Prisoners condemned to death used to be horrifically experimented on in ancient Egypt. Convicts in the United States used to be subjected to horrible scientific “research” up into the 1950s (British Medical Journal). African American people in Tuskegee were subjected to being denied treatment for syphilis long after it was available because scientists were interested in determining what would happen if syphilis were allowed to progress for a long time. This is now regarded as an abomination in the name of scientific research, and epidemiology will always be regarded as tainted because of it.)
Second, I find it offensive that you describe unnecessary surgeries on healthy dogs as “humane.” Those surgeries may be scientifically beneficial, yes, I’ll agree with you. Humane they are NOT. I can’t believe you’re really describing it as “humane” that these dogs are mutilated before being put to sleep. Would you describe it as humane if I mutilated your body and then put you to sleep? Your parent, your sibling, your child? Would it be even more humane if you were an unwanted human being, and not a wanted human being? Also I’m suspicious that any amount of anaesthetic can really dull horrific pain – though I am very glad to hear that you do not ever wake up the dogs from invasive procedures to study recovery).
Finally, I also find it offensive that you say that veterinary students must injure dogs to learn how to set their legs. Maybe this is the case NOW, but don’t you think this is a sign – no, a wake-up call — that we should, as a society, attempt to reduce the number of dogs this must be done to, and look into alternatives? Your just saying yes it’s cruel, but there’s no way to get around this, seems like you’re throwing up your hands and agreeing to mutilate innocent dogs. The animal testing people are all about finding kinder alternatives – have you seen the developments in in vitro technology lately? They’ve come up with all kinds of artificial tissues and joints – so why don’t the veterinary surgery people look into this too? There’s a wonderful site – Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights – that seems to focus on this sort of thing. And I’m sure there are lots of unknown veterinary scientists doing research on this sort of thing who could use more publicity. I think, if you really care for dogs yet want to be a surgeon, you should stop describing performing practice surgeries on “unwanted” dogs as being “humane” and state that it may not be humane, but it’s a sacrifice of the few for the greater good of the many, and it’s helping you to learn how to become a surgeon (which is incredibly valuable to society and numerous hurt dogs). I hope you’ll also try to advocate for and publicize any veterinary researchers you find who are trying to create alternatives to using live dogs. Just think if some scientist could develop a synthetic broken dog leg or GI tract with a foreign body in it – wouldn’t that be fantastic? Thousands of synthetic broken legs could be created and veterinary students could become incredibly good at setting broken legs before going anywhere near a live dog. Hey – they used to think that a rabbit had to be killed for every pregnancy test – but some clever scientist discovered a way to make a pregnancy test that requires no live sacrifice.
That being said, I am glad you recognize the sacrifice these dogs make to science. Many people don’t. Those dogs are allowing my dog to live a longer life than she otherwise would, and I am extremely grateful. Heck, most veterinary surgery eventually gives way to breakthroughs in human surgery – I may be able to live longer than I otherwise would because of the sacrifices of these poor unwanted dogs.
Regards,
Emily
Natasha
April 21st, 2008 at 1:03 pm
This is horrific ! I just found out about vets killing animals last year! I can’t believe this!
There are definately shady vets out there. Years ago (I think it was like 2002 )I was watching dateline or something like that and a person that worked at a vets clinic witnessed the vet beating animals. She put a hidden camera and oh my god it was horrific. The vet punched a cat over and over again in the head while the cat was under anesthesia. The vet was also shown whipping a dog with the dog’s leash! The disgusting monster when to court and the judge let him go! I can’t believe how horrible. I was honestly sitting on my couch and crying and cursing the damn creeps.
Stefani
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I am afraid that for some vets, the evil doesn’t stop when they leave vet school.
Please read:
http://www.badvetdaily.blogspot.com
http://www.SheridanTruth.com
http://www.TheTooncesProject.com
http://www.VetAbuseNetwork.com
Emily
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Hi Stefani — I can’t bring myself to click on those links, but thanks for posting them.
Rachel
January 26th, 2009 at 9:49 am
I just wanted to comment on/clarify something about this issue. Although I am sure some individuals actually hurt the animals in order to do surgeries, this is not always the case. For example, after speaking to faculty and students at Iowa State Vet school, I learned that they only use animals that have been injured or are sick already. They absolutely do not injure the animals just for the sake of learning/research. In order to learn surgeries with bone issues, they use PVC pipes and things like that.
Also, Emily referred to torture situations and compared these surgeries with those and I think that that comparison is inaccurate. These animals (at least at Iowa State) are not tortured. They are taken in by the school and cared for when the humane society is going to euthanize them. Then, they are put under like they are going into real surgery (which means they can’t feel anything, since when I have been put under for surgery it is painless, and you wake up and just feel like you forgot the last couple of hours). The surgery is done exactly as it would be done in a real vet clinic as if they animal would be woken up again. Then the anesthetic is increased. So the animal feels no more pain then they would have if they would have just been put to sleep. And they have the chance of living a bit longer and being cared for and played with by the students. They also have the chance of being adopted by the students.
I agree with the fact that this is a very controversial subject. And my heart has some problems with it as well. But I think it is important to at least understand what is happening, and not try to make it sound like these vet schools are torturing these dogs. I am by no means saying these surgeries are “okay” but people should be properly informed before they decide on their own opinion.
Emily
January 27th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Dear Rachel,
I’m glad you agree that this is a controversial subject, and I’m so GLAD to hear your heart has some problems with it as well. I also agree with you that it is important to at least understand what is happening. However, I disagree with you that these vet schools aren’t torturing these dogs.
Um, interesting choice of examples — PCRM just declared a victory in forcing Iowa State to stop using healthy live animals to practice emergency procedures on. So, I don’t think they made that jump to using pipes willingly — we have PCRM to thank for stopping Iowa State from torturing live dogs.
Second point, so you’re okay with using healthy dogs as subjects for unnecessary surgeries, but you oppose my using the word “torture” for these since according to you, none of these dogs are ever allowed to wake up once they’ve started being attacked with a scalpel? I guess I can honor your opinion there — if that’s the way you feel, that’s the way you feel, and it is your right, and I don’t dispute that. Again though, I’m a little unsure of the whole they’re under anesthesia, therefore it’s painless, argument. I had a pet that died while I was on vacation, and the veterinarian told me they couldn’t keep her alive till I returned — there were no pain medications that would dull her state of pain, and that they could keep her under anesthesia at different levels of consciousness — just a little would basically keep her not moving for the MRI, a lot would almost kill her, etc.
So, I’m wondering — I always find it funny when people claim things aren’t torture or “bad” in any way if they’re done to animals — just substitute the word “human” there and suddenly they turn around. Do you feel the same way? If I took a human being, anesthetized them, performed all kinds of unnecessary procedures on them, and then killed them, would you NOT consider that torture? Or sick? Or do you think that would be good medicine? You wouldn’t worry about the anesthesia levels being high enough? (No jokes about human medicine here, please! I know there are lots of unnecessary procedures that occur there
)
That is a really good point about the animals having a chance of being cared for and played with by the students — I really like to think that happens.
I think the current trend in veterinary medicine of moving away from taking unwanted dogs and performing unnecessary, though anesthetized, surgeries on them, and instead turning to shelter medicine, is the far more humane way to go. Long live shelter medicine! (I’ve been keeping up on the veterinary trends, as you can see . . .
)
Thanks for writing in,
Dear Emily: Thoughts on Veterinary Experimentation | Living Cruelty Free
July 4th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
[...] a comment I received from a post I wrote a while ago on veterinary experimentation — Veterinary Students: Merchants of Death? I feel like it summarizes my thoughts on veterinary experimentation very [...]
Michelle
August 19th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I am currently looking at different schools to attend to become a Vet. I having been a Vegan for about 3 years and have loved animals since I was very little. One of my main concerns is being forced to do cruel animal experiments to pass the classes that are given for this program. Please send me a list of Universities that practice cruel- free experiments or any information that you have regarding this matter.
Thank you so much!
Emily
January 24th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Oh gosh, I really wish I had one! If I did, I’d definitely send it to you!
Meep
February 9th, 2010 at 9:50 am
I became a vegan about seven years ago after adopting my first hselter animal, and it’s changed my life since. I went off the birth-control pill because I didn’t like the idea of purchasing a non-essential medication from a pharmaceutical company that has either tested, or contracted out tests, on animals. It is my personal beleif that to each of us, our lives are precious. To each of us, the suffering and pain we feel is extremely real, regardless of how others feel about us or our suffering. As a result, I do beleive that to each living being, their life is precious to them and their suffering is real suffering (regardless of whether we value animals as more or less than we do people).
Emily, I am taking some liberty here but I think that overall we might have a similar broad-view about the treatment of animals.
All of that being said, Emily I hope you will accept what I am about to say as something to think about, whether you agree or not. Even if its your gut reaction to disagree, please just promise yourself to think about it a little longer past the disagreement. I am okay with what the poster Mary mentioned about the way they practice in veterinary school. You mentioned that no dog should be made to suffer due to humans being irresponsible in breeding and such, and I completely agree with you. However, I think it’s counter-productive to think that by trying to make the most out of a bad situation, vet schools such as Mary’s are somehow exacerbating the situation. Assuming that her school doesn’t promote wanton breeding and neglect of animals, they are truly making the best out of a bad situation. It is my hope that we can increase the level of responsibility when it comes to the care, treatment, and breeding of all animals across the board. However, to do so will require a bit of understanding on both sides.
You made some excellent points about the progress of human medicine through cruel experiments on humans–Nazi or otherwise. While I am totally appalled with a lot of the lax practices in lab animal research that I do often think amounts to torture (regardless of whether some might say it is justified by the ends or not), the situation Mary described seems to be more like clinical research to me. These animals are going to die regardless — such as an end-stage cancer patient. They are used in the meantime to further veterinary research (such as a cancer patient on an experimental trial might be furthering medical research). My mom just passed from pancreatic cancer recently, and we completely knew that the experimental vit c treatment was unlikely to cure her. However, knowing that she was going to die anyway, and that there was some potential benefit for others from the Vit C trial (rather than no potential benefit to anybody if she had just perished), she went for the study. The disturbing aspect of this is the fact that animals can’t give their own consent for such a thing, so it is being forced upon them. Unfortunately, they have no say in anything along any stage of their life that happens. It is my hope that some day there will be no more breeding or commercial animal use, but until that time I am comfortable with what Mary said. It did leave somewhat of a sick feeling in my stomach at first, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it’s the best realistic solution at the time. Had the other option been to let the dogs live a happy life adopted by somebody and not encounter euthanasia at all, then I would have considered the vet school cruel for what they’re doing. However, preventing the dogs from getting euthanized is not within their control (or that of any one person — it is a problem that society as a whole needs to addres). The best thing those that are concerned for animal rights can do is try to push for realistic improvements at every step of the way. As more and more improvements are made overall, being able to prevent the situation Mary described might be possible way down the road. At the time being, we are totally not there and I think that what they’re doing is an improvement over simply euthanizing an animal due to lack of care/overpopulation.
Of course, I say all of this under the assumption that anasthesia does obliterate any pain and that at no point during the procedures are the animals suffering.
Emily
February 26th, 2010 at 8:48 am
Dear Meep,
Well, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about the veterinary torture, but thanks for writing such a cogent, heartfelt, lovely counterpoint that really addressed the issues beautifully.
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