Animals and Human Health : Still Looking for Evidence ?
Résumé
Since the 1960's, there has been an increasing production of writings about how some animals could improve human health. Our research team has listed more than 1000 bibliographical references on the subject. 100 papers have been deeply investigated in order to draw a wide panorama of the controversies or consensual views about the impact of animals on human health. Through this literature, 3 key-periods have been identified: (1) "Foundation time" (1962 - 1985) in which the first experiments were reported and a strong scientific program has been set up. (2) "Application time" (1985-2000) in which various hypothesis were tested, using mostly experimental and/or statistical methodologies, and giving unsatisfying results. (3) "New perspectives time" (2000 - 2007) in which critical reviews take a central role and new approaches are proposed. In this paper, we want to show that the will to produce a scientific testimony of the effects of animals on human health has failed to prove the existence of either benefits or risks of practices such as Animal Assisted Therapy. Furthermore, we state that studies which used rigorous experimental designs and standard measures did not succeed in producing new knowledge, compared to the first studies (which were case studies). In French, the word "evidence" means "something that is obvious." While in English it means "proof." We would like to take this linguistic ambiguity seriously into account and show how the scientific literature about animals and human health spent a lot of time searching for "evidence" (the English way) and, finally, found "evidence" (the French way).