Python

A Burmese python eats her lunch of live rats, while I watch, cheering her on, and heedless of the small rodents’ suffering. In this chapter, I introduce myself, starting my life in animal work as a teenager at the zoo in Boston to my career as a veterinarian for animals in medical research labs.

I recount my own evolution in learning to think and do something about laboratory animal welfare. I include previews of the coming chapters, and explain how I know what I know, as well as how the secretiveness and lack of transparency in my field set limits on what I’m able to tell readers. Between the polarized camps of animal rights activists and research defense lobbyists, I introduce the societal consensus ethic that underlies our laws and practices: harming animals for human benefit can be ethical, but requires strong justification. I conclude that I am now convinced that we still need animals in labs if we want continued the next cancer cure or a vaccine for the next pandemic, but we have a long way to go to give animals the care we owe them given the sacrifices we demand of them.