Thrive Global | By: Dr. Aysha Akhtar | May 17, 2019: Research shows interacting with animals can help foster emotional intelligence and human connection. Harry Truman famously said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog!” Actually, there […]
Literary Hub | May 13, 2019: On the NYPD’s Animal Cruelty Investigation Squad Outside an expansive seventh-floor auditorium, I gaze at the sweeping Manhattan skyline. The Police Academy in Queens, New York, is holding a training session today on animal […]
Female First | May 13, 2019: I read children’s and young adult books. I am a neurologist. So people automatically think that all I read are high falutin’, serious academic books. I can’t think of anything more boring than doing […]
I was giving a talk at a conference in Oklahoma about the public health dangers of industrial animal farming, or “factory farming” as it is commonly called. Each year, more than 64 billion animals are raised and killed for food […]
As a neurologist, I’ve long held that empathy for and connection with animals is an important part of our social development. But can being with animals actually improve our well-being? In the 1970’s researcher Erika Friedmann and her colleagues made […]
No matter how slimy, how scaly, how smelly, or even how scary, animals’ lives now matter to us. Why? Why do we care about other animals? Why do we care about beings whose lives are seemingly so removed from ours? […]
Zika virus, Ebola, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, Nipah virus, Hendra virus, bird flu, swine flu – these viruses have all grabbed international attention in recent years. In the past few decades the […]
When I read the news yesterday that an analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that red and processed meats increase the risk of cancer, my first thought was: The medical community has known this for some time. To […]
There’s an infection called Hand-foot-and-mouth disease, which is common among young children and is caused by a virus. Lately, there seems to be another illness, Foot-in-mouth disease, that’s been going viral, at least socially. The main difference between these diseases is […]
I’ve written previously about the fact that because of the lobbying efforts of the animal experimentation industry, at least 95 percent of all animals in U.S. laboratories — mainly mice and rats — are not considered “animals” under federal law. […]
Fact: The CIA’s torture program was directly inspired by animal experiments. In the 1960s, dogs were subjected to random electric shocks from which they could not escape. Eventually the dogs gave up trying to avoid the painful shocks, not even […]
Here’s my list of five headline-grabbing stories in 2014 that show just how connected human health and animal protection are: 1. Chris Christie Sells Out Humans and Animals After reports of his bridge scandal, the New Jersey Governor’s 2016 presidential […]
Pamela Anderson has made a media splash by refusing to take part in the ice bucket challenge in support of the ALS Association because of its history of funding animal experiments that she describes as being cruel and fruitless. Her […]
With the largest Ebola epidemic ever recorded raging across West Africa and as two Americans who were infected in Liberia have entered the U.S. for treatment, the question has been raised: will Ebola happen in the U.S? Actually, an Ebola […]
“Animal protection is now mainstream.” This was announced at the 5th annual Classy Awards held in San Diego this weekend. The Classy Awards Ceremony honors outstanding nonprofit programs in eight major social sectors, including animal protection, education advancement, poverty and […]
I once attended a neuroscience conference featuring a talk about spinal cord injury. The presenter showed a brief video clip that haunts me still to this day. The presenter showed a clip of his experiment in which he had crushed […]
An international group of scientists recently ended a year-long moratorium on controversial research on potentially deadly strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus. The purpose of the research was to engineer strains of H5N1 in order to understand how it might […]
Recently, PBS’s Frontline aired a disturbing documentary chronicling the National Football League’s history of downplaying and distorting the evidence that football-related head injuries cause long-term brain damage. The film included footage from a 2009 Congressional hearing in which lawmakers compared […]
Do we need to make a choice to either protect animals or humans? This is certainly what those who profit from hurting animals would like everyone to believe. Advocates of animal experimentation especially employ the fallacy of a false dilemma: […]
Your child, my father, and all of our loved ones who may be suffering from illnesses are not rats or dogs or monkeys. So why do animal experimenters keep treating them as though they are? Suppose you are an experimenter […]