Dissection? Cut It Out!

As the celebration of PETA India’s 10th anniversary rocks on, we’re continuing our review of some of our most outstanding achievements, while also looking forward – after all, we don’t want to just sit on our, uh, laurels!

Case in point: Dissecting animals in school is not just cruel, but utterly antiquated. Most medical schools in the US, Canada and the UK – including the highly regarded US institutions Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University – have stopped using animals in their classes, and we stepped up our efforts to persuade India’s universities to follow suit. In June 2008, we were thrilled to announce that New Delhi’s Jamia Milia Islamia University had agreed to cut out dissection in the new school year. But did we stop there? We did not – and by the following June, Gujarat University, Mizoram University, Bharathiar University and Alagappa University had each replaced dissection with humane current methods in some or all of their classes.

These victories are important, but many medical colleges across India are required to continue conducting cruel animal experiments because of the Medical Council of India’s (MCI) regulatory requirements. We are fighting to convince them to change their policies, and we need your help. Go here to send a message to MCI and the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) that it is time to stop forcing medical students to use animals in experiments. After all, the world is spinning forward with newer and safer technologies, and India should be leading the way, not trailing behind!