Animals and Public Health Why Treating Animals Better is Critical to Human Welfare

A compelling argument of how human health is adversely affected by our poor treatment of non-human animals. The author contents that in order to successfully confront the 21st Century's health challenges, we need to broaden the definition of the word "public" in public health to include non-human animals.

Aysha Akhtar is a neurologist and public health specialist, a Fellow of the Oxford center for Animal Ethics and works with the Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats of the US Food and Drug Administration.

"In this book Aysha Akhtar accomplishes what no other recent author has managed to do in a book on human health: provide a cogent and balanced argument for the importance of accepting the intimate relationship between humans and other animals for our own health, that of other animals, and of the planet. Most books on public health consider human health in an evolutionary and biological vacuum. Animals and Public Health takes the opposite approach. It defines public health in its natural biological context, providing insight into why we will never be free of human public health issues without considering the inextricable connection with the welfare of other animals. The wonder of this book is that Akhtar is able to effectively combine a wealth of scientific information with arguments for compassion for other animals. In doing so, she elegantly shows that concerns for the welfare of humans and other animals are not at odds, but, rather, one in the same issue. We are all in this together." -Lori Marino,Emory University, USA