Research involving animals has been a cornerstone of medical progress for more than two centuries. For much of that time, it has also met with moral objections because of the suffering it can cause the animals. Though animal welfare laws in the United States and abroad have ameliorated the pain of animals used in biomedical research, ethical concerns remain, and it is not only animal rights groups that have them, but also veterinarians, physicians, policymakers, ethicists, and biomedical researchers themselves.
There are strong indications that views about animal research are changing in significant ways. New initiatives in the United States are seeking alternatives to animal testing. To better understand the changing landscape, The Hastings Center organized a one and a half day workshop in November 2011 to bring together people with different points of view and areas of expertise – veterinary medicine, medical research, animal welfare advocacy, philosophy, and law – to share their knowledge, exchange ideas and insights, and produce educational resources. The project was funded with a grant from The Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fund and drew on the expertise of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy, a partnership between the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and The Hastings Center.
Project Directors
Susan Gilbert
Public Affairs and Communications Manager
The Hastings Center
Gregory Kaebnick, PhD
Editor, Hastings Center Report; Director, Editorial Department, Research Scholar
The Hastings Center
Thomas Murray, PhD
President Emeritus and Senior Research Scholar
The Hastings Center
Project Participants
Larry Carbone, DVM, PhD
Associate Director, Department Laboratory Animal Resource Center
University of California, San Francisco
Kathleen Conlee, MPA
Senior Director, Animal Research Issues
The Humane Society of the United States
Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH
Robert Henry Levi and Ryda Hecht Levi Professor of Bioethics and Public Policy
Johns Hopkins University Berman Institute of Bioethics
Susan Kopp, DVM
Professor of Health Sciences, Veterinary Technology Program, LaGuardia Community College; Scholar
Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University
Stephen Latham, JD, PhD
Director
Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University
Joel Marks
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of New Haven; Scholar
Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University
D. Eugene Redmond Jr., MD
Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosurgery
Yale University School of Medicine
Gregory Reinhard, MBA, DVM
Executive Director
Merck Research Laboratories Compliance
Joanne Zurlo, PhD
Director of Science Strategy
The Center for Alternatives for Animal Testing, Johns Hopkins University