Earlier this month, I was honored to be hosted by the Yale Law School to discuss my 2018 feature story, Are Happy Lab Animals Better for Science? The basic question: Does enriching the lives of mice, rabbits, and other lab animals–with toys, companions, and more stimulating environments–not only improve their welfare, but improve the research itself? Some argue that the more we treat lab animals like people, the more likely we are to develop therapies that actually work on people. But others worry about the cost and utility of such an approach.
For the discussion, I was joined by some of the top thinkers in this field, including Yale University Professor of Comparative Medicine Caroline Zeiss, Purdue University Professor of Animal Welfare Brianna Gaskill, and Oregon Health & Science University Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience Garet Lahvis. We had a great conversation, and had some great questions from the audience.
Here’s the video from the event:
Are Happy Lab Animals Better for Science? from Yale Law School on Vimeo.