Letters: USC medical school should stop using animals

USC medical school’s use of animals does not reflect standard and best practices in the United States (“Animal-rights group wants investigation of USC medical school’s use of live pigs,” Aug. 25). Respected regional programs such as Duke, Wake Forest, Emory, East Carolina, the Medical University of South Carolina and USC’s Greenville campus are among the whopping 88 percent of emergency medicine programs not using animals.

Since a pig is a poor substitute for learning critical procedures, these programs use high-tech simulators that replicate human anatomy and physiology. USC already has a state-of-the-art simulation facility in Columbia. It’s perplexing that the school insists on using animals, and the public should demand that it switch to superior training methods.