Green Daily

I recently had to watch a number of anti-feedlot videos of screaming pigs. Screams that lasted several minutes while a feedlot worker tried to drag the pig using a long pole passed through its snout out to somewhere the animals clearly didn't want to go. It unnerved me because the screams sounded so much like a person's.

Pigs are genetically similar enough to humans that they are frequently used as test animals for medical students interested in becoming heart surgeons. They are the likeliest candidate for human-animal organ transplants.

These similarities are exactly why the U.S. Army uses pigs to prepare medics for war zones.

Schofield Barracks in Hawaii runs trauma drills by shooting pigs that have been released into a field then shot with high powered rifles. Then, medics (or medics in training, it's unclear) attempt to treat the wound. Army officials wouldn't go into detail on what treatment entailed, or whether the animals would be later killed.

PETA got a hold of this news through someone at the Barracks who was distraught over the practice. But the Army says this training is critical, and it will continue. PETA argues that human simulators or robots could also be used. Teaching hospitals, including ones like the Mayo Clinic, use human simulators to prepare medical residents for unknown crisis situations.

This battle has carried over to the blogs. On a forum on Military.com some suggested that if PETA representatives were so upset perhaps they could stand in for the pigs. It's possible that PETA representatives had a similar thought about the infantry memebers at Schofield.

[via KITV]