Thomas Jefferson would not be happy about the University of Virginia’s cruel use of cats in its pediatrics residency training program. “For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it,” Jefferson said about the school he founded. But the university is tolerating an egregious error in judgment by using cats instead of human-based alternatives [i.e. simulators] for medical training.
As a cardiologist and director of academic affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), let me provide reason to combat UVA’s cruel and unnecessary training that forces cats to suffer broken teeth, tracheal bruising, bleeding, scarring, severe pain — and risk of death.
I signed a complaint PCRM recently filed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Eastern Region Animal Care office stating that “UVA is violating the AWA [Animal Welfare Act] because superior training methods exist that could replace the university’s use of live animals and alleviate this severe pain.”
AWA regulations “require that a principal investigator — including course instructors — consider alternatives to procedures that may cause more than momentary or slight pain or distress to any animal used for research purposes.”
UVA has bought kittens from Liberty Research, a company that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has cited more than 20 times in just two years for lack of sanitation, lack of adequate housing, and substandard air transport of at least 147 cats. Once the kittens arrive at UVA’s pediatrics training program, their pain is well-documented.
Pediatrics training at UVA involves using live cats for endotracheal intubation. This includes repeatedly forcing a plastic tube through the mouth and into the windpipe (trachea) of a live cat.
These cats’ stories are tragic. Fiddle, a calico cat, had plastic tubes forced down his throat 22 times in one day. He and other cats are routinely intubated more than 10 times in one day. Fiddle, Alley — a female calico cat — and other cats at UVA have also suffered broken teeth caused by “blunt trauma,” according to documents that PCRM obtained through the Virginia Public Records Act.
But UVA’s state-of-the-art medical simulation center already owns simulators that are validated for this training and better mimic the airway of a low-birth-weight premature newborn. So why is UVA one of only 6 percent of 186 pediatrics training programs in the United States that continues to use animals?
The great majority of other pediatrics residencies use the Gaumard Premie HAL and Premie Blue simulators, as well as other simulators specifically designed to replace the use of animals in pediatrics training. Virginia Commonwealth University Health System in Richmond, Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Inova Fairfax Hospital and Hospital for Children all use nonanimal education methods that are exclusively used by 94 percent of U.S. pediatrics programs.
It’s time for UVA to honor Jefferson’s words and “follow the truth to wherever it may lead.” It will lead to a better education for residents, improved outcomes for newborns, and an end to the unnecessary cruelty these cats endure.
John J. Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C., is director of academic affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
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