British Navy halts Goat experiments onboard submarine fleet

international | animal rights | other press Thursday February 07, 2008 14:01 by staring at goats

"......The British Ministry of Defence says it will abandon deep-diving experiments which involve inducing decompression sickness in live goats. The animals were used to see what the likely risk of "the bends" would be following escape from a submarine at varying depths under water.
The information would help crews judge whether it would be safer to abandon a stricken vessel or wait to be rescued. Animal rights campaigners say the move will "end decades of animal suffering". More than 400 such experiments have taken place since 2000. However, the tests were suspended in March 2007 while a review committee of six experts examined alternative methods, such as computer-modelling techniques to simulate the effects of the "bends". Now the UK MoD says there is no further need for the animal testing......."

a goat compresses the same way as a human

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7230867.stm

".......The Royal Navy used goats to test whether it was safe for sailors to escape from stricken submarines because their skulls are a similar shape to those of humans, the MoD revealed yesterday. The little-known experiments to avoid submariners getting the bends were revealed in a written Commons statement by the defence minister, Derek Twigg, which also announced that the practice was to be abandoned. Live goats have been used for decades at the navy's base in Gosport, near Portsmouth, as part of research into the effects of different degrees of decompression. The animals were placed into hyperbaric pressure chambers to induce sickness. "They were never placed under water and they were not alone. Other goats were in there too," a defence official said yesterday........."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2253568,00.html

The French did it too..,

The animal rights people are delighted.............".......Live goats have been used for decades by the MoD at their Gosport facility as part of its hyperbaric research in into the Submarine Escape Rescue and Abandonment System (SMERAS). The animals are forced into hyperbaric pressure chambers to induce decompression sickness. The tests were suspended in March 2007, following years of animal rights protest, which saw a committee of six experts instructed to examine humane non-animal models such as computer-modeling and safe human trials to simulate the effects of decompression sickness, or ‘the bends’, which is caused when divers ascend too quickly. Britain’s announcement today follows a similar ‘ban’ by the French Navy which has already stopped using live animals in this research. “This is a victory for common sense and animal protection which sees and end to decades of animal suffering.” says Wendy Higgins of non-animal medical research charity the Dr Hadwen Trust, which specializes in humane alternatives to animal testing. “Goats have suffered brain damage and other hideous effects of these unnecessary experiments despite the fact that the military has for some considerable time known more than enough about the effects of the ‘bends’ on its military personnel. It is regrettable but inevitable that warfare causes human suffering, but it is totally unethical that we should add to this the unnecessary suffering of innocent animals.”.............

http://www.drhadwentrust.org.uk/

other coverage

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/20...7.xml
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/07/goat_compressio...stop/