What Animals Want: Expertise and Advocacy in Laboratory Animal Welfare Policy

by Larry Carbone

Larry Carbone, a veterinarian who is in charge of the lab animal welfare assurance program at a major research university, presents this scholarly history of animal rights. Biomedical researchers, and the less fanatical among the animal rights activists will find this book reasonable, humane, and novel in its perspective. It brings a novel, sociological perspective to an area that has been addressed largely from a philosophical perspective, or from the entrenched positions of highly committed advocates of a particular position in the debate.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for research. Hard to read about lab animals, but it is something we should think about more.

[Susan D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written by a laboratory animal vet who is also a trained historian. Because he has worked extensively with animals, he has a better idea than most about which animal welfare considerations should be paramount for lab animals. I'm not sure we can really know "what animals want," but the strength of this book is that it overcomes the polarity of the animal protection debate and provides a reasoned assessment that gets us back to the important thing: the needs of the animals, in the context in which they are living today.