Silence: Secrecy of Live Tissue Training

From 2005 to 2003, 16 FSTs, also known as Forward Surgical Teams, completed STX, or situational training exercises. This exercise was conducted in partnership with the U.S. Army Trauma Training Center (Ryder Trauma Center) and used Live Tissue Training (LTT). LTT is the practice of forcing live animals, mainly pigs and goats, to train civilian and military medical personnel to treat traumatic injuries.

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Live Tissue Training involves positioning the pigs on an operating table, with their trotters (feet of a pig) tied to a table. Next, an anesthetist administers an anesthetic to put the animals to sleep, then surgeons inflict wounds using surgical instruments, such as cutting open the animal’s spleen and heart. However, some U.S. special operations units, of which no names or locations were made known, were reported to have used “projectile” methods to inflict the injuries. This includes gunshot wounds, bayonet stab wounds, napalm burns, and various (and unstated) forms of amputations. After the situational training exercise was complete, the animals were euthanized and “disposed of.” There are no records of how the nearly nine thousand pigs and goats that are forced to undergo Live Tissue Training annually are disposed of, or records that indicate what happens to the animals if they survive. There are also no records of where the animals are sourced from.

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There is a massive lack of records that are publicly accessible when trying to look into the specifics of how Live Tissue Training is conducted. However, there are reports by Cara Swain, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and lecturer at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in the UK, that state that there are discrepancies in the treatment of the operating theatre from that of human cases. This includes a lack of communication between the surgeon and the anesthetist, which occurs in human trauma cases. There is also a decrease in the sanitation of the instruments used, such as using instruments that have fallen onto the floor and the reuse of a dropped cannula. There were also food and drinks that were provided and were present within the operating room. This report that cited these discrepancies did not include the names of the people conducting the exercise, the location, or the outcome of the training.

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Aside from the lack of records, Marines have come forward to the San Diego news station NBC 7, where they stated that the training was done with a level of secrecy, and they were told to arrive in civilian clothes, and their cellphones were taken away. They also state the military does not want anyone taking pictures or videos to prevent them from appearing on social media. All of this underlines the lack of safety nets for the pigs forced to participate in the training and the complete lack of transparency to the public on how LTT is conducted.

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​References:

G Martinic. “Military ‘live Tissue Trauma Training’ Using Animals in the U.S. - Its Purpose, Importance and Commentary on Military Medical Research and the Debate on Use of Animals in Military Training.” Journal of Military and Veterans’ Health. [Canberra], vol. 20, no. 4, December 2012, pp. 4–13.

King, David R et al. “Simulation training for a mass casualty incident: two-year experience at the Army Trauma Training Center.” The Journal of trauma vol. 61,4 (2006): 943-8. doi:10.1097/01.ta.0000233670.97515.3a.

Mari, August,. “Marines Speak out about Using Live Animals in Trauma Training.” NBC 7 San Diego, NBC San Diego, 8 Feb. 2017, www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/marines-speak-out-about-using-live-animals-in-trauma-training/30163/.

Swain, Cara, et al. “Living Matter(S) for Learning: An International, Multi-Sited Ethnography Exploring How Surgeons’ Learning Is Mediated through the Use of Live Animal Simulation.” Perspectives on Medical Education, vol. 14, no. 1, 2025, pp. 181–193, https://doi.org/10.5334/pme.1762. Accessed 20 May 2025.