Animal Rights Week: April 17-24

It’s Animal Rights Week next week!

Many scientific institutions prepare for this week by warning their employees to “be on the look out” for rampaging activists and whatnot. Activists use this week to publicize “evil” research practices. I personally don’t believe there’s a right or wrong answer – animal ethics is an important issue for me and I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer yet.

Instead of demonizing either side of the issue, let’s use this week to proactively consider our animal-use practices and reflect on what it means to use animals ethically in research.

How can we use less animals?
How can we treat the animals current in use more ethically?
Which research fields should not use animals at all?

Here’s to a (hopefully) enlightening animal rights week!