BIG NEWS: University of Virginia Stops Harming Cats!

http://support.pcrm.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=72721.0&dlv_

Thank you for all your support!

Dear PCRM supporter,

I am very excited to be able to share with you that Kiki, Alley, and Fiddle, the last three cats used in the University of Virginia’s (UVA) pediatrics residency program to teach endotracheal intubation, have been adopted out after eight years of abuse. PCRM learned of the change when we received documents via a state public records request.

This change is the result of PCRM’s campaign that began in September 2010 and the support of our members – including retired pediatrician Roberta Grey, M.D., who started a Change.org petition that received more than 185,000 signatures from people asking UVA to stop this practice. PCRM filed federal and state complaints against UVA’s animal use and held a demonstration outside the president’s office, and more than 200,000 supporters e-mailed UVA’s administrators encouraging the university to take this progressive step.


University of Virginia PCRM Demonstration

In this training, pediatrics residents and other trainees repeatedly forced breathing tubes down the throats of Kiki, Alley, Fiddle, and other cats. This practice can cause tracheal bruising, bleeding, scarring, severe pain, and permanent injury.

UVA now joins the 98 percent of pediatrics residency programs in the United States and Canada that view nonanimal methods as not only more humane but educationally superior.
Unfortunately, live pigs are being killed in Advanced Trauma Life Support training at Hartford Hospital. Please ask Hartford Hospital president and CEO Jeffrey Flaks to replace this use of pigs with medical simulation.

Thank you again for all of your support. Without it PCRM would not be able to secure victories like this for animals still used in medical education and for the future infant patients of today’s pediatrics residents.

Sincerely,
John Pippin, M.D., F.A.C.C.

Director of Academic Affairs
Chair, Physician Steering Committee
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