The VA doesn’t need to experiment on dogs

LETTERS LETTERS@USATODAY.COM As a retired rear admiral in the Navy

Medical Corps, I have great respect for Secretary David Shulkin’s work for veterans, but his uncritical defense of the Veterans Affairs’ (VA) controversial dog research (in his column “Disabled veterans need research on dogs to continue”) is of concern.

Throughout my career as a military physician, I worked to improve the health of servicemembers and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the military health care system.

One area where I continue to see significant waste and abuse is government animal research — and the VA’s painful dog experiments are no exception. Experimenting on dogs and other animals is slow, expensive and very rarely applies to humans. Research reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Medical Journal documents this problem. It translates into billions of wasted tax dollars each year.

During the past decade, there has been enormous progress using non-animal types of research. Just because the VA has used dogs for experiments in the past doesn’t mean it’s the most effective way to do research to help veterans in 2017.

Leading civilian, federal and military facilities — acknowledging the wastefulness and lack of applicability of animal-based research — are actively developing and using more efficient and humane research technologies. For veterans’ and dogs’ sake, the VA should do the same. Marion J. Balsam, M.D. Rear Admiral, Medical Corps U.S. Navy (Retired) Bethesda, Md.

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Veterans Affairs is more humane to animals than veterans, in many cases. How about those who have to live in misery due to the latest “opioids are evil” gospel? If this type of research can help some veterans have better lives, that is great. Just don’t forget about the rest of us. Sam Micheletti