Larry Carbone is a veterinarian with 40 years of experience caring for animals in laboratories. In addition to his veterinary degree, he holds a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and specialty certifications in Animal Welfare (ACAW) and in Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM).

Carbone left the University of California San Francisco in 2019, and is now a freelance animal welfare scholar, consultant, speaker, and trainer in laboratory animal welfare.

Carbone writes about public policy, ethics, and laboratory animal welfare. His 2004 book, What Animals Want: Expertise and Advocacy in Laboratory Animal Welfare [Oxford University Press] tells the story the United States Animal Welfare Act. Once Congress decided to update that law and regulate how scientists use animals in their experiments, everyone wanted to tell them what changes would really matter to the animals themselves. How could medical researchers, animal protectionists, veterinarians and citizens disagree so much on how big a cage a guinea pig harem should have, how to evaluate and treat pain in a lab mouse, what makes for a psychologically enriched monkey, or how much exercise dogs need, settle for, or yearn for in their caged lives?

What Animals Want is available in print or kindle.

With one foot in the humanities and one in veterinary science, Carbone is uniquely poised to examine the policy and ethical ramifications of emerging information animal welfare science. Humans use and impact captive, domestic and wild animals in so many ways, and we must understand how our actions matter to the animals as perceived by the animals. Much of his recent work has focused on pain management: Animals cannot run to the medicine chest for an aspirin, so people must have the best tools for recognizing pain, preventing pain, treating pain, assessing whether the treatments are effective, and deciding when animals will be left with untreated pain in the pursuit of medical research.

When not working on animal issues, Larry Carbone is a potter in San Francisco, a member of Ruby’s Clay Studio. His work is mostly functional wheel-thrown stoneware and porcelain, with occasional flights to the dysfunctional. 

Carbone is a traveler, especially to places where he can see and photograph animals. He travels with his husband, David Takacs, professor of environmental law at UC Hastings College of the Law.

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