Urge the Danish Military to Stop Killing Pigs in Trauma Training!

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The Danish military needs to stop its apparent violation of EU law and end the deadly use of animals in live tissue training (LTT) completely. During these exercises, the military uses pigs as stand-ins for troops wounded in combat. Medical personnel purportedly practise surgeries on the live, bleeding animals.

The list of injuries inflicted on the pigs will give you the shivers. According to official documents associated with this training, these sensitive animals are subjected to "war- and terror-related injuries", including gunshot wounds, blast wounds, amputation, punctured lungs, airway injuries, and eye damage.

PETA Germany first contacted the ministry about ending the live-animal drills in 2011. We released graphic photos of these exercises in 2014. They show live pigs hung from a wooden frame and shot with rifles and handguns to inflict traumatic injuries. The escalation of PETA's campaign comes on the heels of new evidence that Denmark reduced the number of animals mutilated for these training drills by 91% between 2016 and 2020 following extensive discussions with PETA and our affiliates.

These exercises are an apparent violation of EU law, which requires the use of non-animal methods whenever possible. Denmark's apparent ignorance of all available non-animal methods is not a legally permitted excuse for continuing to use animals in LTT.

Using gentle pigs as disposable tools and inflicting massive injuries in an attempt to mimic human war wounds is indefensible.

Help End These Barbaric Drills

PETA and our US affiliate have filed a complaint urging the Danish minister of defence to stop mutilating pigs.

Please take action for pigs, too.

Send a letter to the minister asking for an immediate suspension of LTT while the military investigates and adopts modern, effective, non-animal methods and for the adoption of a definitive timeline for fully ending the Danish armed forces' use of animals for LTT.

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The Honorable

Trine

Bramsen

Denmark

Dear Minister,

I was shocked to learn that the Danish military is still practising live tissue training (LTT). This practice has been rightly abandoned by nearly three-quarters of NATO member nations in favour of far superior human-patient simulators and other non-animal methods.

According to official documents associated with this training, these sensitive animals are subjected to "war- and terror-related injuries", including gunshot wounds, blast wounds, amputation, punctured lungs, airway injuries, and eye damage.

Studies show that surgical training using bleeding, wounded pigs doesn't translate to humans or improve the performance of surgeons operating in real-world situations, in part because of significant anatomical and physiological differences between species that render LTT worthless.

There are numerous non-animal training methods available, including realistic human-patient simulators that, unlike animals, can accurately mimic severe bleeding, breathing difficulties, responses to medication, and even death in humans. These methods do not cause harm and have proved more effective than LTT in numerous studies.

Danish military officials have claimed that functional alternatives to the use of animals in LTT do not exist, but so far, they have refused to provide a list of the specific non-animal methods that they have evaluated and to explain why or how they found these simulation models to be lacking. This is suspicious.

Directive 2010/63/EU requires the use of non-animal methods whenever possible, and Denmark's apparent ignorance of all available non-animal methods is not a legally permitted excuse for continuing to use animals in LTT.

Will you follow the lead of the US Coast Guard and immediately suspend the use of animals in LTT while investigating viable, compassionate, and superior non-animal trauma training methods, as well as setting a definitive timetable for ending the barbaric use of animals in the Danish military's trauma drills?

Sincerely,

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Urge the Danish Military to Stop Killing Pigs in Trauma Training!

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