In a move that would gladden the heart of the animal lovers, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has recently decided not to allow dissection and experimentation of animals at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels for training students in the medical colleges and instead promote computer-aided learning and stimulators.
The move follows long-pending demand from the Union Environment Ministry which last year had issued guidelines to the medical education regulator to stop dissection and experiments on animals citing it as cruelty to animals.
A senior official from the MCI said, “A decision has been taken that for teaching Physiology and Pharmacology, animal experiments may be substituted with Computer Assisted learning modules/simulators/videographs.”
“These are available in the market, which may be evaluated by a group of experts and those suitable for Indian students may be recommended for use in all medical colleges. The experts should make necessary recommendations in a time bound manner.”
Presently, medical students frequently use live mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits and frogs for training purpose.
According to Chaitanya Koduri from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India, nearly 95 per cent of medical schools in North America — including Yale, Harvard and Stanford — do not use any animals to train medical students, and experience with animal dissection or experimentation on live animals is not required or expected of those applying to medical school.
Instead, they use a combination of methods, including sophisticated human-patient simulators, interactive computer programs, safe human-based learning methods and clinical experience, she said.
In 2011, the University Grants Commission had issued guidelines to phase out dissection of and experimentation on live animals in zoology and life science courses.