Survivor’s Jenna Morasca Stars in New Ad for Dissection Alternatives
Jenna Morasca, winner of CBS’s hit show Survivor: the Amazon, is using her celebrity to deliver an important message to high school and college students. As Jenna returns to television to compete in Survivor: All-Stars, she also stars in a new public service announcement about dissection created by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).
In PCRM’s new ad, Jenna explains her view: “With all the great new alternatives to dissection, there’s no need to harm animals now or ever.”
As a University of Pittsburgh zoology major, Jenna refused to participate in animal dissection for a biology class and her grade suffered. “Morally, it was worth it to me,” she says. “Life is more important.”
In more and more classrooms, however, students are winning the right to opt out of dissection exercises—with no penalty. The determination of teachers and students like Jenna has paved the way for these important changes. Dog labs, once common in U.S. medical schools, have been banned on the majority of campuses. Sophisticated computer models have made humane education the wave of the future.
That pleases many medical professionals. “As a doctor who performs autopsies, I can assure students that computer images of well-preserved tissues look more like the ‘real thing’ than the squishy gray organs of a formalin-fixed specimen,” explains Nancy L. Harrison, M.D., of the Scripps Memorial Hospital Chula Vista Department of Pathology.
Jenna’s ad is being sent to high school and college newspapers around the country. The ad is available to media outlets or high school and college students.
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