The Welfare of Animals and Its Relevance to Our Health

Abstract

Whether humans will ever find peace is up for conjecture, but this book aims to demonstrate that until we improve the welfare of non-human animals, we will never find health. For many involved in the health field, this proclamation will come as a great surprise. For others, it might be viewed as approaching heresy. How could the medical field, which is charged with the enormous responsibility of promoting human health and alleviating our suffering, also be concerned about the welfare of animals? It may be argued that animal welfare has nothing to do with human health, or even, more broadly, with human welfare. Yet, the notion that the way in which we treat animals impacts our own welfare is not a new one. Philosophers, scientists and other thinkers, dating from ancient Greece to modern times, have long suggested that when we disregard the welfare of other animals it may come back to haunt us in one way or another. The list of such thinkers is long and includes distinguished names such as Pythagoras, Plutarch, Socrates, Albert Einstein, St Francis of Assisi, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and Isaac Bashevis Singer.