The Medical Council of India (MCI) has amended the education regulations for medical colleges and universities by dissuading use of animals for training and experimentation and pushing for modern non- animal teaching methods.
The Gazette notification for the amendment states, "For teaching physiology and pharmacology in UG curriculum, the required knowledge and skills should be imparted by using computer-assisted modules."
Earlier this year, the University Grants Commission had also sent notices to all universities registered under them to stop animal dissection and experimentation in zoology and life sciences courses, following a pending official recommendation two years back.
These initiatives and regulations have come about due to the result of animal welfare organisations, such as People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and activists, such as Maneka Gandhi, who have been writing to these central educational bodies for years against animal use in training students.
"This is a tremendous victory for animals who will no longer be killed to teach medical students when humane, non-animal teaching methods have proved to be superior," said PETA India Science Policy Adviser Dr Chaitanya Koduri.
According to PETA, nearly 97% of US medical schools, including Harvard, Stanford and Yale, neither use any animals to train medical students nor require experience with dissection for potential applicants.
Medical universities in Maharashtra, on the other hand, claim animals are not being used for any training purposes for years now. "With all the technology that is available to us now, we don't require live animals for teaching. Mannequins and models have been around for decades and we also have artificial simulators which do the job. The phase-out of animals in medical schools has already been implemented," said Dr Sudhir Deshmukh, dean of the medical faculty at Maharashtra University of Health Sciences.
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