St. Louis Children's Hospital still uses cats and ferrets for intubation training exercises in its Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course despite the course's inherent cruelty and the availability of manikins and advanced simulators that have proved to be superior to the use of animals. During the exercises, plastic tubes are repeatedly forced down animals' windpipes. This procedure can cause bleeding, swelling, pain, scarring, collapsed lungs, and even death.
The American Heart Association, which sponsors the PALS training course, has stated that it "does not require or endorse the use of animals in PALS courses" and that "the AHA recommends that any hands-on intubation training for the AHA PALS course be performed on lifelike human manikins." PETA has surveyed hundreds of PALS facilities across the country, and nearly every one of them uses non-animal methods for intubation training. Research shows that in addition to saving animals, these simulation methods better prepare medical professionals to treat seriously ill or injured children because they more accurately replicate human anatomy and allow people to practice these skills repeatedly. One of the original developers of the PALS course has even stated that she is "adamantly opposed to the use of live or even dead animals in the American Heart Association PALS curriculum."
Please contact St. Louis Children's Hospital officials and urge them to replace the use of animals in the course with one of the many effective, non-animal training methods that are available.
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