Over the last few years the biomedical research community, in response to numerous attacks from animal welfare and anti animal-usage groups, has produced a number of popular and semi popular leaflets and booklets defending animal-based research. The two publications considered here are typical examples of the material that has been produced. ‘Animals and the Advancement of Science’, a booklet from the British Association for the Advancement of Science, is a systematic expansion of the six point declaration on animal experimentation originally put forward at the Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1990. Amongst other things, it lists and briefly discusses a number of medical discoveries that were largely dependent on the study of animals and it claims that research using animals is essential to the understanding of disease processes and in the development and testing of new treatments. ‘Understanding Animal Research’ is a booklet in a less formal style, which has been sponsored by the Animals in Medical Research Information Centre and has been paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. It covers in essence the same ground as the British Association's booklet but in a more popular manner.