Animal Research Ethics: Evolving Views and Practices

Editors: Susan Gilbert, Gregory E. Kaebnick, and Thomas H. Murray

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 reduced the number of animals used in biomedical research and ameliorated their pain, ethical concerns remain, and it is not only animal rights groups that have them, but also veterinarians, physicians, policy-makers, ethicists, and biomedical researchers themselves. There are strong indications that the nature of the arguments about animal research is changing in fundamental and profound ways. New initiatives in the United States are seeking alternatives to animal testing. This special report, the product of a Hastings Center project on the changing views of animal research ethics, contains commentaries from people with different perspectives and areas of expertise. The special report is available for free here.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Progress in the Animal Research War

Susan Gilbert

The Moral Status of Invasive Animal Research

Bernard E. Rollin

Using Monkeys to Understand and Cure Parkinson Disease

D. Eugene Redmond, Jr.

The Utility of Basic Animal Research

Larry Carbone

Accept No Substitutes: The Ethics of Alternatives

Joel Marks

Training the Next Generation

Susan Kopp

No Animals Harmed: Toward a Paradigm Shift in Toxicity Testing

Joanne Zurlo

Raising the Bar: The Implications of the IOM Report on the Use of Chimpanzees in Research

Jeffrey Kahn

The Case for Phasing Out Experiments on Primates

Kathleen M. Conlee and Andrew N. Rowan

U.S. Law and Animal Experimentation: A Critical Primer

Stephen R. Latham