It’s not so long ago that Denmark was in the news for killing a healthy male giraffe while a group of young children stood around and watched. Marius was surplus to requirements, and in spite of a large petition to save him, the zoo went ahead with the killing, then carved the animal up and fed him to the lions while the children looked on. The zoo keeper said he was proud to give the children a lesson in the ways of nature. I only hope that those children didn’t leave with the idea that they could carry out their own versions of his nature lessons once they got home. Denmark is not particularly known as an animal loving nation, yet what happens to its pigs in the name of medical research seems brutal even by Danish standards. Healthy live pigs are strung up on frames and army personnel are invited to fire bullets from high powered weapons into their living flesh. Granted the pigs are anaesthetised when they receive the wounds, but they are allowed to recover after being operated upon by the army medics, only to be killed when their surgery is over, even if the operations were deemed a success. This gruesome practice is apparently to train the doctors in emergency surgery so they are better able to operate on human battlefield wounds. To this end, the pigs are treated as expendable laboratory equipment. Tools to be used and abused and discarded, with little thought given to them as intelligent living mammals, their flesh not too dissimilar to ours in its reaction to their gunshot wounds. Horrifying images published in the Daily Mirror show the live targets strung up at one end of a room, soon marksmen appear and shoot at the animals as they hang suspended by their back legs. These vile experiments are carried out at Nato's training facilities in Jaegerspris, Denmark. Although these types of experiments are against the law in the UK, for obvious reasons, the hypocrisy and total lack of respect or empathy for sentient non humans obviously doesn’t keep the MOD awake nights. A UK military spokesperson had this to say, "Our military surgeons undertake vital training in Denmark where they learn specialist trauma treatment skills that save lives on the battlefield. All animals used in medical training are anaesthetised before they are treated and by participating in the Danish led exercises twice a year rather than conducting our own, we minimise the overall number of animals used." Eighty per cent of Nato allies have already ended the cruel use of animals in archaic military medical training exercises like these, so why doesn't the UK, Denmark and Germany follow suit? These Nazi style actions are impossible to justify for any reason. They serve no purpose medically or educationally and morally they have no place in a modern civilised country. We are told by the MOD that there is no viable alternative and they deem this barbarism as entirely appropriate and necessary for military doctors to undergo live animal training. Yet in other more enlightened parts of the world instead of shooting stabbing and blowing up animals, doctors do their training on human simulators, like the Caesar manikin. Caesar’s makers describe him like this, With life-sized realism and modelled physiology, Caesar™ offers clinical accuracy for basic to advanced point-of-injury training. Caesar™ can be deployed to any challenging climate, terrain or training environment. Through tourniquet placements, patient decontamination, and extreme temperatures and conditions, Caesar™ remains tough-skinned and resilient.” …… and Caesar even bleeds. The end can never justify the means, and as moral beings we have a duty to protect the innocent. That, after all, is why we keep an army. It can never be right to torture another species so that we may advance. When I think of all of the vile things we do to innocent animals I am reminded of the words of Jean Paul Richter, “Because a heart beats beneath a covering of hair, fur, feathers, or wings, is that heart for that reason, to be of no account?” Sources: http://io9.com/pigs-are-being-strung-up-and-shot-to-train-army-medics-1525030858 http://www.emlrc.org/simulation-caesar.html Related reading at TEK: PETA reveals live goats legs removed with tree trimmers
2 Comments
B. McPherson
3/11/2014 02:25:37 am
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
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eileen
3/11/2014 04:54:31 am
And in the UK too Barbara. As this would not be allowed here in the UK they travel to Denmark. And as the writer says there are other options.
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