Exposed: Cruelty to Animals, Racism and Alleged Sexual Assaults by Top Military Trainer

For Immediate Release:

10 June, 2015

Contact:

Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 235; [email protected]

 

EXPOSED: CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, RACISM AND ALLEGED SEXUAL ASSAULTS BY TOP MILITARY TRAINER

Video Shows Contractor Shooting Pigs, Denigrating Muslims; Complaint Alleges Drugging and Physical Abuse of US Service Members in UK

 London – A breaking PETA US eyewitness investigation and related documents have revealed mutilations of animals, racism, alleged physical and sexual assault of military service members, illegal human experimentation and other apparently illegal activities in the UK and abroad by Deployment Medicine International (DMI) – the US military’s leading contractor for medical training courses in which live animals are shot and stabbed. PETA UK has sent a letter to Niall Dickson, Chief Executive and Registrar of the General Medical Council, calling on him to investigate these serious allegations and, if corroborated, permanently ban DMI from conducting medical training in the UK.

In PETA US’ disturbing video (available here) of another DMI course attended by personnel from the Navy, Air Force and others, instructors shot live pigs with shotguns and cut into the animals to cause massive bleeding.

In the video, one instructor tells a room of students that Muslims, whom he refers to as “Hajis”, “would be even better” than using pigs for DMI’s deadly training.

Related documents uncovered by PETA US show that during a DMI course in the UK attended by US military personnel, DMI’s president apparently instructed or allowed a student to perform an invasive procedure on a drugged male student’s penis without apparent prior knowledge or consent and without proper oversight committee approval.

 “Shooting and stabbing pigs is an archaic and inferior method of teaching battlefield medicine – and it certainly fosters insensitivity to both humans and animals”, says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi. “The US Department of Defense has an obligation to protect animals and soldiers by replacing these animal laboratories with modern medical simulators, which military researchers agree are more effective and 100 percent humane.”

The previously unreleased documents reveal that the Virginia Board of Medicine recently concluded that DMI President John Hagmann’s alleged conduct in the US and UK creates a “substantial danger to the public health and safety”. The Board suspended his medical license for reportedly drugging, physically abusing and sexually assaulting service members and other students in these courses and for having students perform surgical procedures on one another. In one instance, Hagmann allegedly punished a woman who criticized animal use by forcing her to perform a painful procedure on another student’s penis without proper training.

In recent years, DMI has maimed and killed more than 14,000 pigs and received more than 200 US federal training contracts worth nearly £6.5 million.

PETA UK’s letters to the General Medical Council is available upon request. For more information about animal testing, visit PETA.org.uk.

 

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