The one time I saw the inside of an animal laboratory, at a prestigious university, the veterinarian who showed me around was subsequently fired for that transgression. So it is little surprise that Larry Carbone, a laboratory animal veterinarian, gives us few peeks behind the door: the book has virtually no anecdotes. Instead he takes off the lab's roof to offer a bird's-eye view--distant, measured and worded with sometimes excruciating care--of the battles raging within.

A veterinarian's oath binds her to "the benefit of society through the protection of animal health, the relief of animal suffering, the conservation of animal resources, the promotion of public health, and the advancement of medical knowledge." It imposes contradictory tasks on the laboratory animal veterinarian. "So you keep them healthy until the scientists can make them sick," Carbone quotes a skeptic as saying. A lab animal vet can please no one, it seems--certainly not the animal lover, who suspects her split loyalties, nor the animal researcher, who resents her attempts to oversee not just animal care but also experimental practice.

This article was originally published with the title Speaking for the Animals.

1 Comments

1. 1. sskalkunte 06:06 PM 11/18/07

   To be human is given the ability to accommodate superceding the basic instincts.
   
   Absence in judicious use of animal resources for research purpose is akin to treating our surroundings with impunity - By no yardstick a virtue.
   
   I would recommend a system where wasted animal resource are part of a person's professional record that gets reviewed next time they seek funding for research especially from government sources.

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