The animal research industry has a history of silence that we are beginning to understand must be broken. The public doesn’t have the information needed to understand what happens in our facilities. They’ve been inundated by propaganda that, at best, misrepresents us and at worst, spreads hate and fear. The public is almost exclusively exposed to this nearly always false, fantastical, fanatical misleading information. This isn’t fair to the public, to those of us who work in this industry, or to our animals.What I want the public to know is the truth. I want the public to understand everything we do in a research facility is guided by many, many regulations. We undergo inspections several times a year — often unannounced — by several different agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture.I want the public to know environmental conditions are strictly controlled. For example, if an animal room’s temperature gets even a degree out of range, we must respond and correct it immediately — no matter the hour of the day or night. Recently, I drove in to work to check on a mouse whose water valve had stopped working at 1 a.m. Now tell me people like me feel nothing.