9:15am Wednesday 17th September 2008
SIR – Apparently, despite being subject to continual assessments of efficacy and benefit, and despite being conducted under multifarious laws and codes of ethics ensuring rigorous review, the truth is obvious to H Handy (September 8), vivisection is archaic and completely unnecessary.
In saying so, Handy contradicts three independent enquiries in the last five years which all found that animal testing was scientifically sound and worthwhile.
The Nobel Prize for medicine has been awarded to researchers who used animals 71 times in the last 103 years. Is the Nobel Prize committee hellbent on rewarding fruitless and unethical research?
Handy asks us to imagine all the pain that laboratory research animals endure.
Allow me to agree that we must indeed accept this, just as surely as we should thank the veterans of just wars. We should be aware that many of our medicines and medical procedures come to us at a terrible price.
H Handy is right that research animals themselves never (or only very rarely) benefit by the research. However, it is worth pointing out that animal testing has resulted in numerous drugs and procedures which are used routinely by veterinary surgeons.
BOB CHURCHILL, Worcester
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