Letter from a Western University professor:
Subject: Western University College of Vet Med and Reverence for Life
You need to know some things about our college.
Reverence for Life is one of our college's three founding principles. There is NO WAY EVER that any of us would be involved in selecting animals for euthanasia – or in any way, shape or form encouraging that any animal ever be harmed or killed for our
teaching programs.
We believe in it! We are committed to it!
Whatever emotion you all may feel in hearing this rumor is MILD compared to the outrage and uproar that would occur in both our faculty and student body if there was ever to be an attempt to deviate from this cornerstone of our philosophy – and one of
our greatest points of pride. This college would explode!
We take great pride in the fact that our commitment to graduating veterinarians with excellent anatomy and surgical skills without ever harming a living animal.
Because our college has taken this principled stance other veterinary colleges are being pressured to end their terminal surgery programs, and soon that practice will be history.
Our commitment to Reverence for Life is integral and ongoing. The faculty meet regularly to continue to review everything we do and to continue to try to improve both the quality of the education we provide and the ethical processes and decisions about how we accomplish that. This is not something we signed on to and put in a drawer. We live and breathe it every single day.
We have a Willed Body program that is modeled after the human cadaver program for our College of Osteopathy. Pet guardians have the option, after their loved pets have passed on, of donating their cadavers to our college. There are strict rules and
procedures about how we and the donors have those discussions to insure that even on an individual basis there is no chance that the donation to our program plays any role in decisions they make about their pets while alive.
I myself have donated two of my most beloved companions to this program. I did so because I knew about how respectfully they would be treated and what a contribution to the future well being of the many,many animals these future veterinarians would save (including my own).
Each year we have a memorial service for these pets and their donors often attend. Once the pets have completed their service to our college they are cremated, and if desired, returned to their guardians.
It is possible that we will open up this program to one or more shelters to donate a few cadavers a year. That idea is under consideration, but is not yet resolved. It is not possible that we will ever be involved in any action anywhere that would generate any incentives to select or rush the end of an animal's life for our programs.
All the best,
Gini Barrett
Associate Professor in Biomedical Ethics and Public Policy
Western University of Health Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine
(909)469-5524 office phone
This is a comment recently posted. I too and many others have seen the original report which was quite clear that WU staff and LAAS vet staff would pick ahead of time which selected animal would be taken back to WU.
Many people read the announcement as did I, including the head of DAWS and the ADL. Now, it may be that the corpses are selected AFTER they have been killed and Boks calls Barrett at WU and says we have a 15 year old cat with an adeno carcinoma in the sinuses, do you want it? Be here in a few hours will you before the cat starts to stink.
So how does that jive with Boks statement that the corpses will be selected by both staffs based on some criteria? I wish the process was more carefully explained so that everyone is still not left wondering how much involvement will WU have in selecting the animals to be dissected? Do they wait until and animal is dead, or do they select before the animal is dead knowing euthanasia is about to take place?
Comment left:
AS much as I appreciate Ms Barrett's letter, she needs to read the initial report that was posted on the LAAS website. It stated that the WU staff would be involved in selecting animals for "euthanasia." There was no implying, no "jumping on bandwagons." If these were just rumors, why did Ed have to revise his report? I have a copy of the original report. I read it over and over again. It truly says the staff would be part of selecting the likely candidates for euthanasia so they could take the corpses.
I think the willed body approach is good for private vets, but not for public shelters. It's one thing to will the body of an animal whose person fought to save it. It's another when an animal is killed at a shelter. Any which way you look at it, WU is banking on the killing of animals. For them to say they revere life and they aren't doing the killing is ridiculous. They may not be physically present, but they may as well be.
Also, what message does this give society that already sees animals as disposable? Is it okay to dump them because their death benefits future vets? Hey, don't worry that you just sent your animal to a certain death, you're really doing a great service allowing him to be dissected.
Oh, the memorial is a nice touch. But really, dead is dead and the animals won't be coming back to thank them for being burned versus boiled. Given the option, my guess is the animal would rather just stay alive.
14 comments:
I knew Western was like this, which of course, is awesome.
This outrage was caused by the wording of Ed Boks that implied the animals would be selected when they were still alive for this. Still, agreeing to give them 200 dead animals a year is not helpful for the whole "no-kill" idea (though that's a drop in the bucket to the actual number of corpses made that way courtesy of our city).
But I love Western's Reverence for Life and know they will respectfully make good use of the cadavers.
You can always count on Ed Boks to get everyone worked up into a tizzy!
Another problem is that Boks has lied so much, covered up his mistakes, twisted the truth that it's very hard to believe one word he says. At this point if he were to tell me the sky is blue, I'd have to look up to make sure.
Thank god, anyway, if it's true.
It's so unusual to read/hear a story where someone actually even pays lip service to the idea that a dog or cat's life and body is important and worthy of respect.
I don't like to think about the 200, but if I have to I'm forced to conclude that advancing understanding of veterinary medicine is a better fate for their bodies than being boiled into a stew at West Coast Rendering.
I hope that's not what happens to them after the vet students are done with them. It'd be nice to know they get cremated or something civil.
AS much as I appreciate Ms Barrett's letter, she needs to read the initial report that was posted on the LAAS website. It stated that the WU staff would be involved in selecting animals for "euthanasia." There was no implying, no "jumping on bandwagons." If these were just rumors, why did Ed have to revise his report? I have a copy of the original report. I read it over and over again. It truly says the staff would be part of selecting the likely candidates for euthanasia so they could take the corpses.
I think the willed body approach is good for private vets, but not for public shelters. It's one thing to will the body of an animal whose person fought to save it. It's another when an animal is killed at a shelter. Any which way you look at it, WU is banking on the killing of animals. For them to say they revere life and they aren't doing the killing is ridiculous. They may not be physically present, but they may as well be.
Also, what message does this give society that already sees animals as disposable? Is it okay to dump them because their death benefits future vets? Hey, don't worry that you just sent your animal to a certain death, you're really doing a great service allowing him to be dissected.
Oh, the memorial is a nice touch. But really, dead is dead and the animals won't be coming back to thank them for being burned versus boiled. Given the option, my guess is the animal would rather just stay alive.
Giving dead bodies to WU is pound seizure, according to State Law. In order to do this the commission will have to approve pound seizure. Even if the policy is only for dead animals to WU, the door is open. It would be too easy for the department to "tweak" the policy later. This GM, the next one, a new mayor, a new commission, there are too many opportunities for this to go from dead animals for future vet students to live animals for research for a fee, and everything in between. Given the city's budget crises do we really want to open this door?
Whose idea was this: Boks or Western University? Willed, unwilled, dead on arrival, it just doesn't matter. It's pound seizure, pure and simple. Does Western University really want to be part of pound seizures? Are they straying from their original philosophy? This puts a terrible blemish on their stellar reputation.
Doesn't LAAS staff have enough problems with protesters? Are they asking for more?
As Western University saves face (not!!) because LAAS is killing for them, they are setting LAAS staff up for more protests.
That is so true that with a little more working with vets who euthanize animals in the true sense (not the killing of healthy animals that the city does), Western would have plenty of cadavers to work with. This whole deal with the shelters is just too sinister. I would also like to know whose idea this was. Boks just can't stay away from controversy. It's as if he does it on purpose, just thriving on people talking about him, even though it's always bad, as long he is being talked about. I think it's a sickness.
But truly, it is pound seizure, something the late, great Gretchen Wyler fought so hard many, many years ago to get rid of, and it's against the law.
How disrespectful of Boks to do this to her legacy right now at the time of the Genesis Awards. I can only hope he doesn't show his repugnant drunk face there tomorrow night. I always wondered if he used our tax money to buy his ticket to the awards every year. I know he sure as hell doesn't rate a comp ticket.
Sadly, pound seizure is not against the law. I wish it were.
The law does state that any public shelter must post that they engage in this practice. The posting must be on signs where the public sees it and on owner surrender forms. This includes dead animals going to educational institutions.
I doubt Gini Barrett would sue. What is being stated is fact. She's a smart lady. My hope is she will see that the negatives far outweigh the positives for her colleagues and for the city, enough to opt out of this proposed program.
Pierce College gets the cats that they shamelessly dissect from Mexico because they are unable to get them from the US for whatever law or reason. These poor cats' hearts are many times filled with worms. It makes me sick that they probably round up stray cats in Mexico, killing them in any way they please, most likely not painlessly, and they will continue to do so with no regulation because schools like Los Angeles Pierce College keep giving them money to provide lots of dead cats. Leland Shapiro at Pierce is responsible and should be ashamed of himself!
Yup! #13 is absolutely right!
I have been in the Agricultural dept. when they have had Ferals in cages -- For pocking, prodding, and torture, until incompetent students kill them ruthlessly and shamelessly after stressing and injuring the hell out of them both physically and emotionally for months at a time.
I've been there when they've had beagles in cages in the back room without food or water. They were barking incessantly while classes were going on.
It was insane trying to focus on the Elder Law Classes that were going on right next to the rooms where all this torture was going on.
You're absolutely right, #13!
So let me ask this would you prefer that Western get the animals in Mexico? My remarks are based on Western University only, not other schools I am unfamiliar with. The next time your vet performs a life saving surgery on your pet, you had better hope that he practiced on something prior to this surgery. Western is a reputable school but what kind of vets would they put out if the students didn't have a means to have hands on experiences of surgery. Sorry but I don't want one of those vets operating on my pets. It is a necessary evil in order to train vets to save your pet's life. And when that happens it is your responsibility to honor the dead animals that make it possible for your pet to live. So I see it as you making a choice between the health of your pet and saving a shelter animal's body to be burned and turned into fertilizer. That is dishonoring the animals and I call that disgraceful.
Good point!
I think the real question you need to think about is the procedure by which the animals are chosen to be killed. What is WU part in the selecting of the animals to be killed.
Do they say, "I want that tabby over their without any pathological structures so we can see what "normal" should be."
I guarantee they would want some adoptable or at least treatable animals for dissection learning purposes.
As disgraceful as boiling versus cremation is, you seem to miss the point. The point isn't about how an animal is handled after it is dead, though Boks would like you to focus on that. The issue is where the dead animals come from. I know of many rescuers who do donate their dead animals to WU. I also know of veterinary offices whose clients will donate the dead body. That is fine. These animals were loved and had people who kept them alive until they were, truly, irremediably suffering. After they are euthanized (not killed or died due to overcrowding) they will the body to WU.
The problem with pound seizure is the donation of shelter animals based on the knowledge that these animals will be killed for lack of space. WU is relying on the mass killing of animals. It is NOT in line with their reverence for life philosophy. They are banking on another "machine" to do their killing. But it is killing. People turning in their animals because they didn't take the time to find other venues to place them should not be rewarded by having the option of "willing" the body for the betterment of veterinary science. How can we teach society that animals are not disposable when we, in turn, try to make them feel good about dumping them at a shelter?
The only compromise I see is to direct that person to turn over their LIVE animal to WU. Let WU kill it. Call a spade a spade and make no bones about it.
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