Federal complaint filed against UNC for use of live animal research

Animal rights activists argue UNC’s use of live animals in its emergency medicine residency program violates animal research laws — the University maintains these practices better prepare residents to save human lives.

A federal complaint was filed against the University in August claiming residents in the program train on live animals when there are alternatives.

“This training is done in addition to simulation training as there are certain key critical procedures that are best trained using live tissue when possible,” said a UNC School of Medicine statement.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit organization comprised of doctors dedicated to finding training methods that remove animals from medical education, lodged the complaint.

“Eighty-eight percent of the programs we’ve surveyed do not use animals and we’re working to convince the other 12 percent that they also should not be using animals,” said Dr. John Pippin, director of academic affairs for the committee and one of the authors of the complaint.

Hannah Abernethy, president of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund at UNC, said her organization supports the complaint.

“We absolutely oppose the use of live animals for experimentation and for medical testing, especially when there is such a viable alternative,” said Abernethy. “It’s upsetting that it’s happening at UNC when it’s not at comparable institutions.”

Alternative training methods involve using human simulations that do not harm animals and benefit residents by accurately portraying human anatomy.

“Requiring physicians to learn human medical procedures by cutting apart and killing pigs is like using a map of Asheville to find your way around Raleigh,” said Kathy Guillermo, a senior vice president of PETA, in an email.

The University says change is not needed because the program is meeting current legal standards.

“These training protocols are approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), they are in compliance with federal law and are used by many other institutions,” the UNC medical school statement said.

The next step in the complaint process is an unannounced inspection by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Pippin said this would likely happen in the next several weeks.

“If APHIS agrees that the protocol to use animals should not have been approved by the IACUC, then they will require changes,” Pippin said. “That’s what we expect to happen.”

A precedent has already been set for changing techniques.

“Every other emergency medicine training program in North Carolina has already replaced crude and archaic animal laboratories with humane, more effective and economical human simulators, and UNC should do the same,” Guillermo said in an email.

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