Cats sold to TTHSC

Each October, medical students at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center get four to six feral cats from the shelter to perform medical procedures on.

And it’s been this way for about two decades, Odessa Police Department Public Information Officer Sherrie Carruth said.

Carruth said the practice has been in place since before the city acquired the animal shelter from the county in 1988. The cats that are turned over to TTHSC are feral and are therefore not adoptable, Carruth said.

The contract between the city and TTHSC gives no stipulations on what the latter may do with the cats once they are sold and turned over, Carruth said. TTHSC pays $15 for each cat and that money is returned to the shelter for general operating costs.

“We don’t have a problem with (selling the cats to TTHSC)… We don’t ask any questions,” Carruth said.

The practice even caught the attention of Hollywood. Former Midlander and actor Woody Harrelson sent a letter July 13 to the president of Texas Tech Health Sciences Center president John C. Baldwin, M.D. denouncing the practice.

“Harming and killing shelter animals for these exercises is unjustifiable, especially as realistic manikins that more accurately represent human anatomy and better prepare medical professionals to treat injured and sick children are readily available. . . . I and countless others around the state are deeply discouraged to learn that Texas Tech is taking advantage of the tragic abundance of abandoned animals,” Harrelson said in the letter.

The controversy started when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was surveying pediatric life support courses across the country. Research Associate for PETA Ian Smith said PETA found that most courses at universities and research hospitals that teach similar courses to TTHSC use human-like manikins instead of live animals.

“This is something that used to be more common but most people have switched over to using manikins. It’s mostly an artifact. It’s a sign of them being out of touch with modern medicine,” Smith said.

According to Smith, the research PETA conducted revealed that the cats are anesthetized and then hard plastic tubes are forced down their throat. By the end of the procedure, the animals are so traumatized they can’t recover. Smith said the cats are then killed, most likely by an overdose of anesthesia.

PETA said they have never been able to establish a dialogue with TTHSC and Smith said the health center has never defended itself. Calls to TTHSC by the Odessa American were never returned.

“The American Heart Association exclusively endorses the use of manikins. Nobody recommends using animals and not because they are animal activists like us, but because the manikins are amazingly sophisticated. It gives (students) the chance to repeat the skills as many times as necessary,” Smith said. “The cats’ anatomy is quite different. And with a live animal, you can only practice once.”

The fate of many animals at the shelter is just as dim. Those that are deposited at the shelter face one of three fates. Animals who have not been vaccinated have a minimum three-day waiting period before shelter workers can euthanize the animal. Animals who have been vaccinated face a minimum 10-day waiting period before they are euthanized. Some are adopted into new homes.

Carruth said cats brought in by owners who just can’t care for them any longer are not eligible to be sold to TTHSC. The only cats sold are either strays picked up by animal control or ones brought in that were found by people in the community. No individual has any right to make a decision about the fate of stray cats because they become the property of the city, Carruth said.

A humane solution isn’t readily available, PAWS founder Vickie Lee said. Lee said her cat haven stays full at all times and while she hates to see animals sold for medical procedures, she recognizes that there are more cats than owners for them.

“It’s sick,” Lee said of the practice. “All I can say is God made these little animals, and they are not being treated right… I don’t know how they get by with it.”

Smith said it doesn’t matter if the animals are strays or former house pets; the pain inflicted is still the same.

“That doesn’t make these animals deserve this trauma or suffering any more. There’s really no excuse for inflicting this kind of abuse on these animals. These animals have been abandoned, they are being put through all this and then being killed,” Smith said.

By the Numbers

>> 11,305: Animals that came to the Odessa Animal Shelter in 2008.

>> 4,000: Cats, mostly feral.

>> 9,423: Animals that were euthanized.

>> 977: Dogs and cats that were adopted out.

>> 901: Dogs and cats that were reclaimed by their owners.