Phoenix Rising: Pathways toward Animal and Human Liberation
Dr. Hope Ferdowsian, president of Phoenix Zones Initiative (PZI) and a public health physician, discusses how she and her colleagues are working to dismantle the roots of oppression, exploitation, and domination harming humans and non-humans. She highlights the physical and psychological suffering and harm that animals face in food production and in research labs, and how this systematic exploitation of animals is linked to violence and conflict globally. These same systems, propped up through powerful lobbying efforts by corporate elites, also contribute to global issues like hunger, malnutrition, species extinction, climate change, and infectious diseases.
Using ethics-based policy interventions within academia, public health, and intergovernmental organizations, PZI is working to transform these systems. Hope highlights the “phoenix effect” she has witnessed among human and nonhuman survivors of severe suffering who have rebounded, recovered, and healed. She shares how as practitioners and advocates of social and ecological justice we can cultivate the strength and resilience needed to facilitate that transformation for ourselves and for those in need.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
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Hope Ferdowsian 0:00
We're connected to each other and to other animals through our vulnerabilities. Sometimes these are referred to as capacities but our capacities for fear, pain and joy actually stem from the fact that we are biological creatures. And those capacities can be either nurtured and build strength and resilience or they can be exploited and deepen suffering. Like us, other animals are capable of rich and complex lives. They're born with a natural curiosity about the world. They form families, they form friendships, they desire to be free, they desire to explore the world around them, they desire to learn so that they can thrive and whatever bodies they're born into. And these are capacities that we share with other animals in the world. And I think that those capacities make life worth living. And it's why when we interfere with those capacities for other human beings or for non human beings, it's so painful.
Alan Ware 1:00
In this episode of the Overpopulation Podcast, we'll be speaking more with Dr. Hope Ferdowsian, physician and president of Phoenix Zones Initiative, a nonprofit organization that advances social and ecological justice and the interdependent rights, health, and well being of people, animals, and the planet.
Nandita Bajaj 1:27
Welcome to the Overpopulation Podcast where we tirelessly make ecological overshoot and overpopulation common knowledge. That's the first step in right sizing the scale of our human footprint so that it is in balance with life on Earth, enabling all species to thrive. I'm Nandita Bajaj, co-host of the podcast and executive director of Population Balance.
Alan Ware 1:50
I'm Alan Ware, co-host of the podcast and researcher with Population Balance, the first and only nonprofit organization globally that draws the connections between pronatalism, human supremacy and ecological overshoot and offers solutions to address their combined impacts on the planet, people, and animals. And now on to today's guest. Over two decades, as a double board certified internal medicine, preventive medicine, and public health physician, Dr. Hope Ferdowsian has cared for individuals who have experienced displacement and violence, while she has also worked on policy to address structural inequities in human, animal, and environmental exploitation. Her public health expertise covers climate change, hunger, chronic diseases, emerging infectious diseases, poverty, forced migration and conflict. Her work across six continents has included the development of medical, public health and educational resources for nongovernmental organizations, national governments, and intergovernmental organizations. Many of her publications including her book, Phoenix Zones: Where Strength is Born and Resilience Lives, focus on ethics, global public health and the links between human, animal, and planetary health and well being. In 2019 she co-founded Phoenix Zones Initiative. Dr. Ferdowsian has served as faculty at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Georgetown University School of Medicine. And she now serves as a professor of medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
Nandita Bajaj 3:26
Hi Hope. We're really happy to have you here. Your work on advancing the health and well being of people, animals, and the planet has been a source of inspiration to us, especially because it's rare to find other organizations and people with whom our mission and values overlap so closely. We're very excited to share your transformative work with our listeners. Welcome to our podcast.
Hope Ferdowsian 3:51
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's great to be with you.
Nandita Bajaj 3:55
We'd love, Hope, to start with a little bit of your background. You have a really interesting origin story. So over the last two decades, you've worked across six continents as a public health expert in the areas of homelessness, displacement, torture, sexual violence, and animal abuse and exploitation, all of which we're going to dig deeper into today. And many of your students and patients lovingly call you, Dr. Hope. When and how did you start to see the inner linkages among these structural inequities that brought you to this work?
Hope Ferdowsian 4:31
Well, I started thinking about these connections as a child. I grew up on a small farm in rural Oklahoma. And there my parents also taught me about human rights violations around the world. My father grew up in Iran before he emigrated to the United States, and his family and his community belong to a minority religious group that had been persecuted, and continues to be persecuted by the Iranian regime. And so I grew up hearing about many of those stories. And by the time I was nine, I was reading about children, who are my age at the time, being persecuted, even tortured, and even killed because of their ethnic or religious or racial backgrounds. And at the time, I was also learning how children were starving in places around the world because of drought and because of famine. And it was around that time that I decided I wanted to become a doctor in response to much of the suffering I was learning about around the world.
But living on a farm and living among animals I also saw how animals can suffer. And as a kid, it was difficult to understand why one group of rules or one group of values should apply to one group of humans and not another group of humans, or why one group of rules or values should apply to human beings and to no other animals. And now, as a human rights physician, I realize I was on the right track. Throughout the course of my career, I've learned how violence against human beings and nonhuman beings stems from the same place. And my journey over the course of my career has led to a deep belief and a deep understanding that we will only be able to achieve justice and peace if we dismantle the very roots of oppression and exploitation and domination that harm both human and nonhuman beings.
But I'm certainly not alone in pointing out those connections. And those ideas aren't new. These ideas are found in indigenous traditional knowledge and in ancient knowledge from around the globe. I talk about some of those connections in my book Phoenix Zones. And even in more modern history, human rights and animal rights have been treated as one cause. You know, I think about Henry Berg, who was a lawyer, and he and his colleagues started organizations for the protection of the most vulnerable members of society, like children and animals. He was the founder, co-founder, of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. And in the late 1800s, he was one of the first people to step up to help a nine year old girl named Mary Ellen, who was being abused and starved and confined in her own home. And at the time, children didn't really have legal rights. And he won that case, using laws that were at the time protecting animals. And fortunately, she was freed from that awful situation. And she grew up to live into her 90s if I'm remembering correctly, and lived a really full life, also caring for other children, as she got older. So that's a little bit about how I came to what I do now.
Nandita Bajaj 8:01
Thank you for that story. And that's why your work is so incredible, especially because you're doing work in advocacy in actually trying to change some of the policies and laws around how we treat other individuals, humans and nonhumans alike.
Alan Ware 8:17
So in your book, Phoenix Zones: Where Strength is Born and Resilience Lives you discuss in the introduction the concept that primatologist, Franz de Waal, termed anthropic denial, the denial that humans and animals share many of the same thought processes and emotions. What do you see as some of the primary evidence for why anthropic denial is very false?
Hope Ferdowsian 8:43
Well, over the past several decades, even longer, we've learned so much about the lives of other animals. And every day we learn more and more. There's always a new story or a new study about animals capacities. And those stories also shape how we think of ourselves as human beings. We've come a very long way from the time of Rene Descartes, who suggested that animals were mere machines incapable of feeling, consciousness, or thought. And we now know that other-than-human animals exhibit powers of imagination, empathy, and many of the other qualities that we as human beings possess. But we haven't done enough to apply what we've learned about other animals.
And, you know, I often think about something my Dad reminds me of - that we've come a long way when it comes to technological advances but we still have so far to go in terms of moral or ethical progress. And so much of our refusal to accept our bonds with other animals and with the rest of the natural world, takes the form of what Franz de Waal called anthropic denial. This taboo against accepting other animals have emotions like we do, like human beings do, or that humans have emotions like other animals, even though we have many of our emotions because we are animals.
And as I show in the book, we're connected to each other and other animals through our vulnerabilities. Sometimes, these are referred to as capacities, that our capacities for fear, pain, and joy, actually stem from the fact that we are biological creatures. And those vulnerabilities; those capacities can be either nurtured and build strength and resilience or they can be deepened and exploited, and expose us to suffering and deepen suffering. Like, as other animals are capable of rich and complex lives. They're born with a natural curiosity about the world. They form families. They form friendships, they desire to be free. They desire to explore the world around them. They desire to learn so that they can thrive in whatever bodies they're born into. And these are capacities that we share with other animals in the world. And I think that those capacities make life worth living. And it's why when we interfere with those capacities for other human beings, or for nonhuman beings, it's so painful.
Alan Ware 11:23
And it seems a lot of the emotions of empathy, compassion that we've observed in everything from mice, and rats, and dogs, and these are all social species. And that, of course, they would have evolved those emotions to maintain social cohesion in a group just as humans evolved those emotions. It's also interesting with justice and fairness with the Capuchin monkeys was it throwing the, if they got a sweet versus a cucumber? And one kept getting the sweet, the one that got the cucumber would throw it away. And then dogs not working for food if they see other dogs getting more than they are. So even those senses of kind of fairness and justice, which would also in any social species make sense, and that there is enough individual concern of each individual in the group that they would want a sense of justice and fairness and not too great of a degree of inequality for social cohesion. So it is, it's quite amazing, the more we're learning about all of these animals, how deep and rich it goes.
Hope Ferdowsian 12:25
Even though we've learned a lot, we still have so much to learn to understand about animals. But I think it's always useful to kind of think about the precautionary principle in terms of how we think about other beings, you know? I was reading a study the other day about how snakes are so much more social than we have assumed them to be, you know, in terms of forming relationships with other snakes. And I've seen other snakes interact with each other in really compelling ways.
And so, there you know, it's useful for us to kind of be humble about what we do and don't know, and how we understand the behaviors and capacities of other animals, and what they can teach us. Because I think we need to get in touch with a lot of the vulnerabilities that we share with other animals, we've kind of lost touch with them, as human beings. And then I also think it's important to remember that we aren't the measuring stick. We have capacities that have evolved over time to help us live better in the bodies that we inherit, and other animals have to. And so the more and more I learn about the world, about human beings, about nonhuman beings, the more and more I realize how little I understand, even with tremendous interest in these issues.
Nandita Bajaj 13:45
Yeah, it really speaks to this concept of human exceptionalism. That is not something we're born with. It's definitely something that is inculcated through our upbringing during our lifetimes. There was a study recently that came out of University of Exeter that showed that really young children don't have this moral double standard that we've learned as adults to differentiate between dogs, and cows or farmed animals. They think that pigs and cows and mice and dogs should all be treated exactly the same like us. In fact, it's not until they hit middle school that this sense of speciesism kicks in. And to me, as a former educator, I saw that happening in real time in my own education, but then I saw myself perpetuating those beliefs, because it wasn't until recently that I really woke up to my own speciesism that I'd grown up with.
And speaking of that, you know, one of the worst atrocities of our time, that we subject animals to, is happening basically in the raising and slaughtering of animals in factory farms. In fact, you say that over 60 billion land animals are killed for food each year, and billions more are suffering within an increasingly global and industrialized animal agriculture food system. Could you describe what some of the most egregious abuses of animals in the industrial food system are?
Hope Ferdowsian 15:19
Well, some of your listeners might have read or be familiar with Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle, which was about an investigation of the Chicago meatpacking industry. But over the past several decades, this situation hasn't actually gotten better. It's gotten worse for all animals who are used for their flesh and their milk and their eggs. And in many ways, their lives and deaths have become more mechanized and removed from human view. In fact, there is legislation just passed in Canada, I believe, to prevent undercover investigations or journalists from documenting what happens in factory farms. But nonetheless, because of good journalism in the past and undercover investigations, many people have seen pictures of factory farms.
So people are aware of how animals are genetically modified so that they grow and grow and grow bigger and faster. They're crowded together in situations, conditions that don't have sunlight or grass. They're deprived of normal lives. And many animals, like pigs, for example, are kept in small gestation crates, after they're forcibly inseminated. They're later moved to a farrowing crate, where they're forced to labor and nurse and give up their babies. They're packed so tightly in those cages that they can barely stand up. They can't walk. They can't turn around or stretch, let alone escape or withdraw or reach for another being, even their babies. And you know, if you think about it, cows and calves, face their own health, really, as do sheep and lambs, and chickens and chicks and then, so many other animals who are used in food production, and just think about the fear that that invokes.
And so of course, they are placed on conveyor belts, they're suspended from hooks and chains, their lives are drained out of them. But I can't imagine what fear those situations must invoke for animals from the time that they're born to the time that they die. Aside from that extreme suffering, I think it's important to think about the other things that they lose. They don't only have a lack of freedoms from abuse and exploitation. They also lose the freedom to make choices about their lives, to be in the presence of those they choose to, and those they love to live a full life as we all want to do.
And fortunately, as you said, there's a growing consensus that this type of suffering is morally indefensible. But I think we really need to look deeper at where these systems came from. Why do we deny other beings their lives in these ways? And how does that relate to the violence and the conflict that we see today all over the globe? The systematic exploitation of animals in many ways emerged relatively recently in our evolutionary history, about 10,000, 11,000 years ago. So over time, humans began capturing animals, often killing older animals who are protecting their young. And then they begin to learn how to control animals. They develop methods to control other animals and their lives. They use whips, they use chains, they use spears, they use knives - a lot of the weapons that we use today. And they turn to controlling the reproductive lives - castration, insemination. They control their identities through branding, even taking off parts of their bodies so that they couldn't protect themselves as much - cropping off their snouts, their ears, their tails, practices that continue to this day.
And that's really all happened in the name of, Nandita, what you were describing earlier, this idea of dominion, that has really become entrenched in our law, in religion, a number of different religions around the world, and in science, even. So, unfortunately, those notions have stuck with us so much more than indigenous traditional knowledge has, or these more ancient ideas before domestication occurred, that really allowed for a deep kinship with other animals. You know, human beings historically had much deeper relationships with other animals who are living around them and, you know, a different type of relationship with each other as well with other human beings.
So it's easier and easier to close our eyes to what's happening because of the way industrialized farming is so mechanized and so hidden from human view. But it is absolutely tied to the ways in which we treat each other on this planet as well. So even for those who may not have a natural affinity and empathy for other animals, it's incredibly important for us to think about the treatment of nonhuman beings as it relates to the treatment of human beings and how we're going to survive together on this planet.
Alan Ware 20:42
And you describe in the book some of the negative effects of the food system on the humans also themselves. Could you share some of those with us?
Hope Ferdowsian 20:54
Yeah, it's hard to know where to start because there are so many connections. And maybe one of the places to start is with the problem of violence and the awful ways in which we sometimes treat each other. Violence against animals is clearly linked to community violence and to societal violence. Even slaughterhouse location has been independently correlated with violent crime rates in counties across the United States. And historians and authors like Charles Patterson and Jim Mason, have shown how the domestication of animals and exploitation of animals that I just described was in many ways, the model for the inspiration for many forms of human oppression, whether that's abuse or torture, or even enslavement and genocide. They're incredibly thoughtful authors on these subjects, and I'd encourage anyone to read what they've written on these topics. Jim Mason has a book called An Unnatural Order that dives into this issue in great depth. It's incredible.
Alan Ware 21:58
I also saw in researching this, psychologists Costello and Hudson, maybe you're aware of their work, where they found that a belief in a large human animal divide makes it a lot more easy to be prejudiced against out groups and create out groups, whether that's race, immigration, other things. And leading up to Rwanda, any number, you know, Hitler, there's always a dehumanizing, turning into some kind of animal, which itself is a product, as you said, of the agricultural revolution, this large human animal divide that comes over time. Yeah, that just supports what you've just said about the more you create that large human animal divide, the easier it is to create other human out-groups and have us versus them and war and conflict.
Hope Ferdowsian 22:46
You know that great divide really planted a seed that some human beings could be reduced to something less than human. And if we don't value the identity of an animal in their most vulnerable form, it makes it much easier to devalue other human beings when we're in our most vulnerable states. So there are clear connections that I think it would be useful for both those who are engaged in the movement for animals and those who are engaged in the movement for human rights to come together and explore these connections more. But that's not the only way in which the food system in particular hurts human beings.
One of the most recent examples is that of pandemics. Today we see how our food system can lead to pandemics. For example, although the origins of SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID 19 are still under investigation. The strongest genetic and epidemiological evidence points to an animal market that sold live animals from the wild as the early epicenter of the pandemic. But the problem of animal borne diseases is a lot greater than the risk posed by wildlife markets. About three quarters of new outbreaks in humans stem from nonhuman animals. And Matthew Hayak is a scientist who has a really great brief paper out. It's in one of the nature magazines. And there he points out that industrial animal farming has created this infectious disease trap, because it leads to ecosystem destruction, and because of the crowding of captive animals, so there's really no way that you can get around that trap. And we've seen that, of course, with pandemics like avian flu and swine flu.
And the types of food that we produce also relate to hunger and malnutrition, which have taken a turn for the worse around the globe, in part because of the war in Ukraine. Global grain supplies in particular have been down. And the combination of conflict and climate change have also exacerbated famines in places like Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan. But currently, about half of the world's grain is used to feed animals used for food production. And so that diverts resources that could be used to feed hundreds of millions of hungry people, including kids, children, starving children.
And this is a topic that is close to my heart since I was a kid, and I've been able to work on as an adult. And including on the issue of government subsidies in the US and other countries, but in particular the US, we have subsidies that subsidize meat and dairy production by large conglomerates rather than healthy plant-based foods that organizations like the World Health Organization recommend to combat the problem of malnutrition and hunger. And in fact, there's a few studies that show that if we were to divert the grains that are currently used to feed animals use for food production to human beings, about 3 to 4 billion people could be fed each year, not to mention how that would free up land for healthier ecosystems and communities.
So there's a number of other connections, including the link to chronic diseases or non-communicable diseases. Killers like heart disease and cancer are linked to meat and dairy consumption in particular. Those are not only the top killers for Americans today, but increasingly for global citizens around the globe, including in countries that don't have the resources to deal with those chronic diseases. And then, of course, there's the connection to climate change and environmental degradation. Our food systems and the use of intensive animal farming in particular, contributes significantly to water pollution to soil pollution to air pollution. And you know, it increases the risk for infectious disease, exposure to toxins.
And then of course, there's the climate change connection, fossil fuels, and the meat and dairy industry are the top contributors to greenhouse gases. And I think animal-based foods produce twice as many greenhouse gas emissions as plant based foods, in part because of carbon sink loss that's related to rainforest destruction for grazing and grain production. And then also the methane production that comes with the use of cows in particular in food production.
Nandita Bajaj 27:28
And to your point about government subsidies going toward these really destructive systems, despite there being so much scientific evidence in front of us to show these connections between pandemics, climate change, emissions, the rise in illnesses related to all of these. And yet, there was this new expose that the Guardian did just last month, about the Food and Agricultural Organization's downplaying of the emissions related to animal agriculture. You probably saw that, Hope. There was this incredible report, Livestock's Long Shadow, that animal advocates are very familiar with that came out in 2008. It was a groundbreaking report. The research found that animal agricultural related emissions amounted to 18% of all climate emissions. And that called for a radical downscaling of this industrial agricultural system. And, of course, what happened as a result was all of this backlash from these huge meat and dairy producing countries, so much so that the same organization was compelled to actually water down their data in future publications. It went from 18, down to 14 years later, to now 11%. And, to me, that's not just unethical. It's so dangerous.
Hope Ferdowsian 28:58
And some of those reports like the initial FAO report, subsequent analysis demonstrated that that was probably even an underestimate, to begin with, a significant underestimate. And it is such a problem, because we have scientific report after a scientific report showing the connections between our food system and climate change and environmental degradation. And we all know how big of a threat climate change and environmental degradation are. But lobbyists, you know, now are involved even in the climate summit. And so there's this total disconnect. I almost feel like the last thing we need is another scientific report. We need to accept the evidence as it is, apply the precautionary principle if we can even get there, and act upon these things. Because, I mean, we're just running out of time, right? We need to act now, if not yesterday.
And yeah, that's a lot of what we're doing at Phoenix Zones Initiative. and we're doing, you know, in concert with other organizations, as well. And I know you all at Population Balance are also working on these issues, issues like population, how we create family. We often talk about it as if it's someone else's problem rather than our own. But it's really become a problem because of our production and consumption patterns, especially for those of us who have so much choice. My partner and I have chosen not to have children. And there are a number of reasons that guided my own personal choices in this area. But primarily, I think it's become a moral choice for me, for us. And I emphasize the word choice, realizing that many women and girls in particular, but many people around the globe don't have the same level of sexual reproductive choice that you or I might let, I think an abundance of choice also carries a certain moral weight, including kind of how we consider justice, justice within our species justice with individuals of other species. And, you know, no matter how much good we try to do in the world, we leave a pretty big footprint. And I try to kind of remain humble to that, at least my own contributions, even trying to limit, you know, our consumption, through purchasing choices and dietary choices. We live a pretty big footprint for other human beings for non human beings and the environments that those who come after us will also inherit.
Nandita Bajaj 31:29
You know, I think the thoughtfulness that you've put into your own procreative decision making is a really inspirational message for us and our listeners, because it's really what we're calling people to do is to really think very, very deeply about the interpersonal nature of procreation and consumption. It might look like it's a personal choice, but everything that we do, extends out into the world, especially for those of us who have so much privilege as you said.
Hope Ferdowsian 31:55
Yeah, absolutely.
Alan Ware 31:57
Yeah, in addition to the billions of animals killed in animal agriculture and how many other billions suffering, there are also millions suffering in various types of research labs across the world. And you and your organization, Phoenix Zones initiative are deeply involved in trying to change that research. What are some of the greatest harms that animals used in research are facing?
Hope Ferdowsian 32:22
Unfortunately, almost anything can be done to an animal in the name of science. And all you really need to do to realize that is go and do a literature review in PubMed, and the National Library of Medicine, for example. And as a result, animals suffer from all kinds of physical and psychological harms. They suffer, in particular, from what's called captivity effects, which basically just refers to the range of, of harmful physical, psychological and physiological changes that can be induced with confinement. We see this in human beings and in other beings. And so most regulations that we have today in the US, but not exclusive to the US as we've seen this pattern around the world, they deal with the conditions of captivity without addressing the actual harm of captivity itself.
You know, animals in laboratories experience a range of other threats to their bodily sovereignty. They are tranquilized. They're paralyzed. They're restrained through other physical and chemical means. They may be deprived of food or water. They're continually exposed to injury and disability and death. Most animals used in laboratory research are killed at the end of a study or studies. The animals used in breeding are forcibly inseminated, or they're subjected to electro ejaculation. They're deprived of normal sexual behaviors, normal reproductive behaviors that they would normally engage in. If they have babies, those babies are taken away from their parents, not allowed to live normal lives, even to bond. And they're also forced to watch what happens to others. You know, we were talking earlier about their empathy for others, and what they experience if they see something that is unjust or unfair, and so they're deprived, really, of life's full dimensions, you know, including the very pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness that we value so much. So it really is never ending and for animals who've spent lifetimes in laboratories, it's really quite awful.
Nandita Bajaj 34:34
The difference between factory farms, which is industry, and what's happening here, which is in educational institutions, is remarkable in a way, because here we have institutionalized a form of enslavement, violence, and cruelty within our educational systems. And we're indoctrinating young people to believe that it's okay to subject incredible beings to this level of cruelty and harm, in the name of science as you said. Can you speak to the sheer lack of translatability of these procedures and experiments to our health and well being?
Hope Ferdowsian 35:21
If you zoom out and look at this issue, from a larger perspective, you know, a lot of spending goes to animal research, about half of the United States National Institutes of Health budget is spent on animal research, rather than on research that could directly benefit human beings, including prevention research. We don't invest enough in prevention, particularly in the US. And that's a growing trend around the globe. And when doctors and scientists have examined how animal experimentation itself translates into human outcomes they've found really serious problems.
In drug development, for example, animal data doesn't correspond well with human data. If you actually look at the graph it's kind of all over. And as a result of that mismatch between human and animal data there are high rates of what we call false negatives, or high rates of false positives. And what that results in is a risk for harmful events, when therapeutics are ultimately tested in humans and delays in discovery. And when scientists, when doctors, have looked at the question about translatability, using the methods that we use to evaluate how good evidence is, things like citation analysis, meta analyses, systematic scoping reviews, what those powerful studies have shown is that there's a general lack of predictability in the translation of animal research to human clinical research. And there are a lot of reasons for that mismatch. And I think it's important to kind of think about this, you know, why is this happening? And you know, there are a few bottom lines. One, diseases differ across species. They actually differ within species, but they really differ across species.
Most animals don't experience heart disease the way we do, and certain cancers aren't found in other animals the way they are in humans. Part of that is because we have differences in anatomy. Other animals don't have permanent breast tissue like human beings do. Lab experiments also don't account for human epigenetic effects, the huge effects of behaviors and our environment on the genetic expression and disease risks that we see within individuals and across populations. Of course, lab experiments with animals don't account for human genetic variability that we see within a population or a group of populations as more modern technologies that are just incredibly innovative can do.
And I think most importantly, for me, animal experimentation fails because of problems that are inherent to animal research. And here, I'm not just talking about the methodological problems with animal research and that it doesn't stack up to human clinical research. Here, I'm talking about the acute and cumulative trauma of lab life, that fear and anxiety and pain that animals experience in labs as a result of being forced to breed or reproduce in ways that they wouldn't choose for themselves, their babies taken away from them, being confined, you know, being exposed to disease, and disability, and threats to their lives all the time.
All of that interferes with the interpretation of results. And those are unnatural stressors. They affect us differently than natural stressors would. They affect other animals differently than, quote unquote, more natural stressors would, and it can lead to changes in the brain like post-traumatic stress and depression, can lead to changes in the heart. It can lead to changes in the immune system. Virtually every other organ system is affected by those sorts of unnatural stressors. And there's no way to tease out those stressors and what happens to organ systems from the experimental results that people are interested in. Because ultimately, we're talking about sensitive beings, you know, beings that are capable of joy and suffering, and not the machines that Descartes suggested animals were about 400 years ago or so.
Alan Ware 39:27
And you and PZI have recommended, what you call a Belmont Report for animals. And the original Belmont Report was created in 1978, in the United States by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. So, based on the findings of that report, the US Department of Health and Human Services went on to incorporate much greater rights and protection for human participants in scientific research. And you're advocating that we need that kind of report for animals. So what would that kind of Belmont Report for animals look like?
Hope Ferdowsian 40:03
Yeah, so my colleagues and I have written about this in a paper called The Belmont Report for Animals, and that was published in Cambridge Quarterly for Healthcare Ethics. And there we explored how principles that are included in the Belmont Report, I really think of them as rights based principles and principles that are related to the principles that I write about in the book - principles like respect for autonomy or self determination, the importance of beneficence or doing good, non-maleficence, avoiding harm, and justice, this idea of fairness. Those are principles that really ground human research today. And they've laid the groundwork for the conduct of human research, and concepts like informed consent, risk benefit analyses, and in particular special protections for vulnerable populations, such as children and incarcerated individuals, who may not be able to provide informed consent, either because of their developmental capacities in the case of children, or because of incarceration in the case of incarcerated persons.
But as we describe in the paper, many animals display autonomy or different forms of self determination. But even setting that aside, the capacity for autonomy or lack of autonomy has a very intimate relationship with vulnerability, you know, whether that's intrinsic lack of autonomy, as children might have when they're very young or extrinsic sources of threats to autonomy, like captivity or power differentials and so forth. And according to the Belmont Report, to the degree that individuals can't make informed decisions by providing informed consent, they need to be protected from harm and especially serious harm, severe harm.
So anything that might be out of the context of a normal life is often considered a threshold for harm that children shouldn't be exposed to during the course of research. And my colleagues and I have argued, and increasingly a growing number of scholars are arguing the same, that nonhuman animals as a class should really be considered vulnerable and protected. As such, they can't give informed consent to protect themselves from harms that informed, competent adults like us would normally avoid or, or refuse. And so we're now working in partnership with the George Washington University School of Law Animal Legal Education Initiative on the establishment of a national commission on research ethics, which will reexamine what the principles in the Belmont Report mean today, not only for human beings, but also for other animals. And we expect that that inquiry, that multi-year project will have implications not only for people and animals in the context of research, but also thinking outside of the context of research.
Alan Ware 42:53
That's very helpful. That's good news to hear that you're advancing on that.
Hope Ferdowsian 42:56
Thank you.
Nandita Bajaj 42:57
To the point of the Belmont Report, you make the case through using a lot of different examples, that animal and human response to trauma such as war, abuse, and displacement involves some of the same underlying causes, and they exhibit many of the same effects, kind of like what you were describing about the research animals in labs. You've given a lot of stories from various sanctuaries around the world where animals and people have helped each other thrive after experiencing severe trauma. Could you describe what you saw in the sanctuaries that you visited, both human and nonhuman animal sanctuaries?
Hope Ferdowsian 43:40
Sure, sure happy to. You know, I think it's easy to get caught up in the suffering in the world. But I think it's also important to consider the capacity for resilience that many human and nonhuman beings show and where that resilience comes from, and how we can encourage more of it, and how we can use that knowledge to prevent suffering in the first place. And so what I found before writing the book, and while writing the book, and kind of reflecting on this even more is, I was seeing something among the torture survivors, the sexual violence survivors and other survivors, human survivors, I've come to care for and advocate for over the years. And I was witnessing this phenomenon, people kind of defying their seen and unseen injuries, and thriving after certain forms of trauma that are almost indescribable.
And it's almost like a mythical phoenix, who rises from the ashes of her previous form. And even after living through what can only be described as hell, some survivors rebound, recover, and heal, and that transformation is can be called the phoenix effect. And over the years, I came to realize how animals can also heal after severe suffering. And what we know now based on cutting edge scientific discoveries is that animals can become traumatized in ways that are akin to human trauma, but they can also heal in similar ways. And our propensity for healing for resilience really goes back to biological mechanisms, brain structures, hidden deep, deep, deep in the brain, and certain clinical signs that we see. And in medicine, we also refer to this phenomenon as neuroplasticity. And so with time, like I came to view survivors as spirited phoenixes, you know, who can ascend from the ashes if they're given the chance, and phoenix zones are the sanctuaries, the places of refuge that make the phoenix effect possible, that make this level of resilience possible.
And in the book, I describe how the most injured even among us can heal and thrive if we attended key principles. And I saw this again and again, when the various sanctuaries that I was in, you know, whether that was a sanctuary for combat veterans and wolves recovering together in a California refuge, Congolese women thriving in one of the most dangerous places on Earth, Washington sanctuary for chimpanzees who have been used in research, and even thinking about the asylum seekers and the refugees who I came to know at my own medical clinic. And I'm always kind of zooming out in terms of thinking about how we can take these lessons, these stories to inform how we think about the world. And I think that the stories that I came to know and the science behind them are also metaphors for how we can move beyond our society's collective history of violence and toward a more resilient future.
Alan Ware 46:48
And what are some of those principles that you talk about in these different sanctuaries that you've observed with the phoenix effect?
Hope Ferdowsian 46:55
I talk about six principles - respect for liberty, respect for sovereignty, commitment to love, compassion, and tolerance, the promotion of justice, the importance of opportunity, and a fundamental belief that everyone possesses dignity or intrinsic value. And when I think about those principles, I think about liberty and sovereignty as the, you know, what we call freedoms, the space where our bodies and movement are our own, and not under the control of someone else. Love and compassion and tolerance, in many ways, represent this awareness that we're not alone in the world. And justice, I think, is the realization that everyone else's struggle matters as much as our own, or as much as the next.
And this idea of opportunity is really kind of a path to hope, as I describe it in the book. It's really the chance to thrive in the bodies that we live in. And I think fulfillment of those principles is only possible when we recognize dignity, intrinsic worth, and that every individual has dignity, intrinsic value or worth. But I think that there's a reason that these principles are actually found throughout society and throughout different societies right across the globe. They're in philosophy books. They're in religious texts. They're in international law, at least for human beings. But those principles actually are biological needs. And there are biological needs for animals. And, you know, this is one of the reasons that we make the argument at Phoenix Zones Initiative, that this is one of the reasons we need to recognize these principles or rights for other animals, because in order to be healthy, as human beings, as other-than-human beings, we must have these rights recognized.
And more generally, what people, sociologists, have found, for example, is that when we practice these principles more consistently, and they're more pervasive throughout society, it's actually easier to protect against the abuse of those principles, and it's easier to address violence and conflict in society. Conflict is always going to emerge, but it's how we address conflict. It's how we resolve conflict that matters. And, you know, when we have a guiding set of principles, principles that we say that we value and adhere to, we can kind of move through whatever conflict arises if we have a sincere commitment to those principles.
Nandita Bajaj 49:18
What you are describing are just really beautiful core principles. I know Jeremy Lent talked about that in our episode last year, that there is a propensity toward those behaviors. And it's a matter of unlearning a lot of what's made us less human, and moving towards values that make us more human. And so much of what you're pointing to is changing the story. And if you continue to repeat that story over and over again in practice it becomes part of our social norm. So another thing you've talked about, Hope is at PCI, you are at the forefront of advancing just One Health approach, which is quite different from the One Health approach that is being used by a lot of international organizations. Can you help differentiate between the two approaches?
Hope Ferdowsian 50:12
Yeah, absolutely. One Health, when you look at it, is actually an ancient idea that recognizes the interconnected health and wellbeing of people, animals, plants, and the environment. But today's version of One Health, as you mentioned, has come under a fair amount of criticism for being too anthropocentric. And many One Health approaches actually lack an ethical framework and attention to concepts like justice. And there's been little emphasis in One Health on human or nonhuman rights, and in many ways, the growing literature on One Health commodifies nonhuman beings and neglects their intrinsic value, their rights, their interest in their own well being and flourishing. And that's problematic from a moral perspective and from a pragmatic perspective as we've talked about.
So a Just One Health approach goes further. And it recognizes the connections between rights, health, and justice, and that humans and other animals have a right and need to be free from abuse and exploitation and to meet their self determined physical mental requirements and to flourish as individuals, families and communities in natural, safe, healthy environments. Ultimately that approach, we believe, it enables a more effective realization of One Health potential and, as a result, also aims to better address the global existential threats we're facing, whether that's the problem with pollution or climate change, pandemics, ecosystem destruction, you name it.
Nandita Bajaj 51:50
And recently, PZI was granted special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council, ECOSOC. Congrats on that honor. That's a big deal. How do you think this new role will allow you to advance the Just One Health principles within the UN?
Hope Ferdowsian 52:06
We're grateful for the opportunity. It enables us to interact with the UN and its subsidiary bodies in a different fashion, even than we have been. We have the opportunity to attend events and meetings that we might not have before. We can provide expertise specific to the nexus of the rights, health, and well being of people, animals, and the planet. And we can, perhaps with this role, that are inform you and goals and objectives. And I think of it as a way to ultimately influence this social, economic and legal frameworks that we were speaking of, and ensure that they are more just and therefore promote health in more cohesive ways.
Nandita Bajaj 52:49
That's a really big deal. Because I mean, in some ways, it's hard to know, as huge of an organization as the UN has become, how much impact it's really having. But at the same time, it does carry a lot of weight in informing media and policymakers. It's the only largest kind of intergovernmental organization we have right now. So despite a lot of the inadequacies, and bureaucracies within the body, it's still a very powerful opportunity that you have to have a say, within those bodies. Because one aspect, you know, within the UN we're finding, and we're so glad you're kind of in there trying to affect change, is the sheer human exceptionalism and this kind of attachment to growth. And I'm sure that's something that you've thought about,
Hope Ferdowsian 53:39
I think we have to kind of break the systems that aren't working with a lot of agitation in whatever forms that comes in, and we have to kind of think about, okay, how can we change the systems at the same time that we're trying to break them down in ways that are constructive rather than destructive? But I've been most encouraged by the work of civil society organizations. I mean, I think, especially as we're seeing civil society organizations that are informed by things like indigenous traditional knowledge, younger and younger generations of individuals who are really committed to justice across the globe, that's where I see the most potential for change. And when civil society organizations are given the opportunity to influence the direction of intergovernmental organizations, like for example, UN bodies, I think there we have to kind of take them and agitate as much as possible, and push forward even kind of internal ideas that are worth pushing forward.
So for example, the World Health Organization and other organizations have at least paid lip service recently to the idea of an economy of wellbeing. So our push along with other organizations has been that okay, if we're going to talk about well being well we can't only talk about human well being right? So, you know, creating these different economic models and advancing these different economic models that are not centered on this idea of quote, unquote, growth, kind of how we think about growth today, is absolutely key. And so we have to work from both bottom up and top down, I think.
Alan Ware 55:20
Yeah, we appreciate the top down work you're doing with PZI and the policy work. And we definitely need that. Now you as a physician, you've had a lot of bottom up experience around the world working with people in really emotionally difficult circumstances - refugees, and victims of sexual violence. And you mentioned in the book, that in fields like medicine, journalism, law enforcement, a lot of people do have a burnout or compassion fatigue, also referred to as secondary traumatic stress, or vicarious, traumatization. And you've written that can lead to numbness, withdrawal, anxiety, anger, cynicism. So you have spent many hours in the presence of people and animals that have been traumatized and, and stressed. How do you deal with it personally in a way that helps you go on in a way that might help all of us be able to be more in the work and be able to deal more compassionately with others who are suffering and not collapse or burnout in the face of that?
Hope Ferdowsian 56:28
I've been given a tremendous gift by getting to know survivors. And, as you mentioned, vicarious trauma has the potential to undermine progress, including social progress. And that's because we sort of absorb the trauma that others experience if we're empathic, right? We absorb those visceral costs of compassion, in what is unfortunately, still an imperfect world. And that can result in intellectual inflexibility and other problems that kind of undermine our efforts to summon action of ourselves or others. And I think we have to work against that. And although there is this emotional cost to caring for other individuals, I think that there's also a tremendous reward that can come with it. And this idea of vicarious resilience can be had, and it's not passive. Any kind of resilience requires work, of course. We have to take care of ourselves.
I mean, personally, I follow a healthy vegan diet. I exercise every day. That's first thing I do every morning, maybe after, you know, saying good morning to everybody, I'm looking at my phone. I'm still working on sleep on becoming better at sleep. But I also think we need to think about the work itself. And you know, that work never ends. And reflecting on that work. And you know, not only what's possible from a negative perspective, but what's possible from a positive perspective, and how we use the principles to guide that work in our everyday choices and our actions and, and thinking even about vicarious resilience, resilience as kind of an every day proactive thing that we do, to kind of combat the fear and the uncertainty and the violence and conflict that we see around us in the world, as our worlds kind of become smaller and smaller in many ways.
And I think working around the globe, I see how my colleagues, they're working in some of the most dire situations. And I think if they can do it, certainly the rest of us who have more privilege than our daily lives can do it. And I think that we build that resilience and even that vicarious resilience in kind of the ways we make choices about life, you know, the ways we educate children, the media and the language we choose to use, the products that we purchase or don't purchase. or boycott. And I think, you know, we can work toward disabling exploitative institutions by ultimately holding firm to these principles by refusing to kind of support those that undermine dignity or liberty or sovereignty or justice or opportunity for others. And so, you know, in doing that we sort of build the resilience that we can witness and others as they overcome much more significant threats to their immediate well being.
Alan Ware 59:19
We're quite grateful to you for doing both the top down and bottom up. You're able to do the very in person kind of learning about, as you said, vicarious resilience, that you probably have a lot of people that you've seen go through amazing suffering, and you're impressed by how strongly they hold up in the face of it. And also having this bigger picture policy UN type of approach that you're engaged in. So thank you for all of that work and your personal resilience and spirit and strength through an inspiration to us.
Hope Ferdowsian 59:56
I'd say the same.
Nandita Bajaj 59:57
Thank you so much for the incredible work that you're doing and we're excited about future work together with Pb N PCI. Thank you.
Hope Ferdowsian 1:00:07
Thank you both so much. It's been a joy.
Alan Ware 1:00:11
That's all for this edition of the Overpopulation Podcast. Visit population balance.org to learn more. To share feedback or guest recommendations, write to us using the contact form on our site, or by emailing us at podcast@populationbalance.org. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate us on your favorite podcast platform and share it widely. We couldn't do this work without the support of listeners like you and we hope that you'll consider a one time or recurring donation.
Nandita Bajaj 1:00:39
Until next time, I'm Nandita Bajaj thanking you for your interest in our work and for your efforts in helping us all shrink toward abundance.
