24. 02. 10. - 12:00

Scientists warn over pig experiment halt

Scientists have slammed the stopping of an avalanche pig experiment last month amid public protests.

Scientists from Innsbruck Medical University and the Institute of Mountain Emergency Medicine in Italy tranquilized pigs and then buried them in snow on Sölden glacier in Tyrol in an attempt to find out what happens to humans caught in avalanches.

Researchers chose pigs because of their biological similarity to humans. Some were completely buried, others up to their necks, and the time they took to die was recorded.

But the teams stopped the tests after the deaths of ten of 29 pigs following public outrage.

Now doctors and scientists have said the decision to end the experiment before its completion was a set-back for emergency medicine and a weakening of legal controls.

Hermann Dietrich, the veterinarian who heads the experimental animal section at the university, said today (Weds) that the experiment had met high scientific standards. He also noted that pigs underwent more stress at a slaughterhouse than they did if tranquilized and then buried in snow.

Public outrage over the experiment extended to a bomb threat against a Tyrol bank last month.

Bosses at the Raiffeisen branch in Sölden near the site of the experiment said the threat had been sent in a letter after the bank had been mistakenly identified as having been part of the experiment. Police, however, said the bank had had nothing to do with the experiment.

The pigs that survived because of the premature ending of the experiment were handed over to the Tyrolean Animal Protection Association rather than sent to the slaughterhouse.

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