This episode is sponsored in part by KittySift and Doobert.com.

Aysha Akhtar, M.D., M.P.H., is a double-board certified neurologist and preventive medicine specialist, with a background in public health, and is a U.S veteran. For a decade, Dr. Akhtar was a Medical Officer at the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Akhtar is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She is the author of the two books, Our Symphony With Animals. On Health, Empathy and Our Shared Destinies and Animals and Public Health, which argues for the need for health institutions to include animals as part of the "public" in public health. Dr. Akhtar is also the founder and CEO of the Center for Contemporary Sciences.

Stacy and Dr. Akhtar discuss the importance of empathy in our society and how stopping infectious diseases, halting climate change, improving medical care, and decreasing violent crime are all connected to our empathy for animals. Increasing empathy for all animals increases our own wellbeing, which means that caring for community cats is caring for the community as a whole, and that public health models that support animals as well as people are essential to healthy communities.

Dr. Akhtar also tells Stacy about her new nonprofit, founded in May of 2020, called the Center for Contemporary Sciences. The Center for Contemporary Sciences aims to end experimental testing on animals, and create a shift toward new testing methods based on human biology. Studies have found that 95% of drugs and vaccines safe and effective in animals fail in human trials. Dr. Akhtar believes the Center for Contemporary Sciences has the potential to help end cruelty to animals in the scientific setting, as well as give us a better understanding of the diseases that affect human biology.

To find out more head over to the Center of Contemporary Sciences website. If you're interested in buying Dr. Akhtar's books, you can find links on her website. We recently reviewed Dr. Akhtar's book, Our Symphony With Animals, on our blog.