OB/GYN Patients Demand End to OHSU’s Pig Body Count in New PETA Video Hitting Campus

For Immediate Release:
March 8, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Portland, Ore. – For International Women’s Day (March 8), PETA is pressing the gas on a mobile message that will circle the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) campus from sunup to sundown today, screening a compelling new video narrated by a medical doctor that shows people who need obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) services holding signs proclaiming, “I Require OB/GYN Care. Stop Mutilating Live Animals in OB/GYN Training.”

In an escalation of its multipronged campaign to compel the school to end its invasive procedures on live pigs in its OB/GYN physician residency training program, the group has also run a full-page ad in The Oregonian today listing more than 110 other OB/GYN residency programs that use advanced human simulators or other animal-free training methods—highlighting OHSU as the archaic outlier it currently is.

“Patients and physicians alike are condemning OHSU for its shockingly crude use of live female pigs as human stand-ins during deadly OB/GYN doctor training,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA is calling on the school to stop sacrificing one female for another and adopt superior, non-animal technology, which would spare pigs’ lives and actually provide human-relevant training for physicians.”

New records obtained by PETA show that OHSU spent at least $13,691.50 to purchase and kill 14 female pigs between March 24, 2022, and April 20, 2023, for its OB/GYN physician residency training—during which internal veterinary records state that several of these pigs experienced abrasions, “social incompatibility,” cardiac distress, “sustained arrhythmia,” abdominal bleeding, and other issues. So today, the group is sending a letter to Nathan Selden, new interim dean of the OHSU School of Medicine, calling for an end to the program’s use of live animals.

Records previously obtained by PETA show that at least 64 OB/GYN residents at OHSU have cut into up to 48 live female pigs, dissected their organs, and performed other invasive surgeries on them in attempts to learn human medicine. All the animals were later killed. The group earlier sent a letter to Dr. Amy Stenson, director of the university’s OB/GYN residency program, and wrote to Dr. Aaron Caughey, the school’s OB/GYN department chair, noting that dozens of similar programs in the U.S. use animal-free training methods, such as realistic human-patient simulators, advanced virtual reality systems, and interactive computer models.

Just last month, PETA supporters wearing pig masks crashed a faculty demonstration held in support of disgraced former OHSU School of Medicine Dean David Jacoby, who failed to take action to end the school’s archaic pig mutilation program and who recently resigned from his position after a student brought allegations that a university professor had taken surreptitious photos of female students during class.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.