The USC School of Medicine is accused of violating the Animal Welfare Act in a federal complaint to be filed Thursday by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. According to the organization, the emergency medicine training program might be engaging in questionable practices by using pigs to teach surgical practices.
Under federal law, universities and other research facilities must consider alternatives to animal use, particularly if the animals experience pain or distress. The Physicians Committee claims that, given recent medical progress and the alternatives available at USC, there is no justification for the continued use of live animals in medical training.
In a press release, the Physicians Committee says that the USC Animal Care and Use Committee has been providing “inadequate oversight of the training protocol.” The Animal Care and Use Committee is in charge of approving all use of animals at the university and is governed by the National Institute of Health. The emergency medicine training program’s use of pigs has been approved by the committee.
In a statement, the university said that they were operating within "all local, state and federal laws."
A statement on the website of the USC vice president of research reads, “The University of South Carolina recognizes that the use of laboratory animals for teaching and research is fundamental to advances in biology and medicine.” In the most recent Animal Care Inspection Report, conducted by federal inspectors in April of this year, no direct or indirect non-compliance issues were listed.
According to Dr. John Pippin, the director of academic affairs for the Physicians Committee, once the complaint is filed, the government has to conduct another inspection in the upcoming weeks. The inspection would be targeted at the specific complaints the organization is making, Pippin said.
If the inspector concludes that the university is complying with federal regulations, the department would not need to make any changes to their use of animals. If there was any violation detected, the university would be required to make any changes that the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Animal Welfare Act, outlines.
“The University of South Carolina does not have to believe us … all they have to do is look around" at other programs, Pippin said.
In a survey conducted by the Physicians Committee, they found that 12 percent of emergency response programs use live animal experiments, compared to 62 percent in 1994 according to a 2008 report in Nature. Many universities have recently stopped using animals for medical training. Even Johns Hopkins University, which had been a vocal defender of using animals in medical training, announced in May that it would no longer use animals in its school of medicine.
“Both the School of Medicine and Palmetto Health believe that our greatest responsibility as health educators is to prepare health care providers to preserve human life,” USC's statement said.Last year, there were 115 pigs reported in the annual USC inspection report in addition to 2,403 other animals.
USC’s emergency residency program is among 19 in the US using live animals, according to an ongoing survey of 160 programs conducted by the Physicians Committee. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the only other program in the Southeast that still uses animals to practice surgical procedures, according to the survey and Pippin. The Physicians Committee filed a similar complaint against that university on Aug. 4.
The USC statement said that the current use of animals in the training program is “limited to the very small number of circumstances which cannot be adequately replicated by simulation experiences.”
In a press release, the Physicians Committee claims that the Palmetto Health USC School of Medicine Simulation Center has adequate resources for simulations to be used for instruction instead of pigs.
“They could end the use of animals tomorrow,” Pippin said.
News editors T. Michael Boddie and Mary Ramsey contributed to this report.