Animal rights are not something you hear too much about in the U.S. military. The United Kingdom appears, not surprisingly, to be way ahead of the U.S. on this issue. Goats, once used in the U.K. to test the effects of decompression on humans, will now be spared. Aviation Week's Ares blog reports that "Junior defense minister Derek Twigg had the dubious honor of telling the British Parliament that the ministry had recently ended live testing on goats for hyperbaric research. Apparently – and unfortunately for the goat – its skull is similar to that of a human, hence the choice of test specimen."
The U.S. military, on the other hand, continues to use goats for preparing medics.
