U.S. Military Used Live Pigs To Test Body Armor Protection

April 8, 2009 8:24 p.m. EST

Washington, DC (AHN) - A Pentagon report shows that military researchers dressed pigs in body armor and strapped them inside Humvee simulators that were then blown up with explosives to study the link between roadside bombs and brain injury.

For 11 months, researchers subjected 200 pigs and rats to roadside bombs, the top killer of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite fears that body armor would deflect the force of blasts toward the head and increase the risk of brain injury, researchers say the studies determined that body armor does not worsen brain injury as the. They also found that body armor protects troops' lungs and is critical to surviving blasts.

Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said it is in the best interest of the soldiers to conduct these tests, despite outcry from some animal rights groups and organizations.

"If use of animal subjects in testing results in our ability to save lives or prevent injury to our troops, we're confident this is the right thing to do," Walker said. Pigs without body armor died from blasts within 24 to 48 hours, while those with armor survived "significantly higher blasts," she said.

Walker also said the Pentagon complied with all regulatory policies to "ensure that a minimal number of animals were used in the testing and that they were treated humanely at all times."