University's proposed new primate research centre is built (News, 24
November). I presume they mean vital for medical progress but, in fact,
animal experimentation is just one research method among many - and one of
the least reliable.

There are many examples of research on animals giving results that do not
apply to people. Penicillin kills guinea pigs but, mercifully, was not
tested on them before being used on humans. Tragically, there are also many
side-effects in people that animal research does not predict, which is why
many drugs have to be withdrawn, having harmed, or even killed, people.

Therefore, we are better off using the many research methods whose results
are directly applicable to human beings.
Richard Mountford
Animal Aid
Tonbridge, Kent
-------------------------
Your editorial of 24 November was depressingly ill-informed. The arguments
against animal testing have moved on from the crude polarisations so beloved
by the vivisectors.

The public inquiry set up to determine the outcome of Cambridge University's
application to build a huge primate testing laboratory just might be the
start of a desperately needed debate over the efficacy of animal
experiments.

We have a right to hear these arguments. Animal welfare and human health are
at stake.
Diana Marshall
Woodbridge Suffolk
----------------------------
As a one-time holder of an animal experimentation licence, I wonder if I
might be allowed to comment on the plans for research on primates in
Cambridge.

Defenders of this kind of work make two statements in support of their
views. One is that the mental processes of non-human primates are
sufficiently close to those of humans to make research on them meaningful.
The second is that the experiments are no more painful than those which have
often been performed on conscious human patients during neurosurgery.

However, if it is true that the thoughts of non-human primates mimic those
of humans, they must also suffer from terror. No scientist denies that
during these experiments restraint is inevitable, and that the animals fight
against it. The nature of the restraints is well described in textbooks,
such as those by the Nobel prizewinner Sir John Eccles. In a typical
experiment, the head and body of the conscious animal are clamped and the
electrical responses to stimuli such as the smell of food are recorded.
Despite his status as a senior scientist, Eccles gives little attention to
the probability that his experiments are invalidated by the subjects' fear.

Comparison with neurosurgery in humans is vitiated by the absence of
consent. And if, as is sometimes alleged, the animals do not feel fear, what
becomes of the argument based on similarities?
Stephen Butterworth, MD FRCPath
Marden, Kent
________________

To Cambridge News 25 September 2002  www.cambridge-news.co.uk
Primate lab not needed  from Dr Pandora Pound

It is very convenient for Mr Nixon to suggest that the public are opposing
the development of Cambridge University's proposed primate laboratory on
moral grounds.

In fact, the majority of protesters are opposing the proposed laboratory on
scientific grounds; namely that there is not enough scientific evidence to
suggest that animal experiments are necessary for the development of
clinical treatments for illnesses such as strokes, Alzheimer's and
Parkinson's diseases.

For example, animals, including primates, have been used for over a hundred
years in stroke research, yet the only two treatments of proven
effectiveness in acute stroke -- aspirin and admission to a stroke unit --
did not depend upon animals for their development.

Given scarce resources and the availability of more effective non- animal
research, it is hard to see how the primate laboratory can be in the public
interest.  -Dr. Pandora Pound  editorial@cambridge-news.co.uk

The Times  28 November 2002  www.thetimes.co.uk
Animal experiments

Sir, Mick Hume (Comment, November 25) accuses animal rights protesters of
putting primates before human health. If one assumes that this kind of
research has been "indispensable to the progress of medical science", he
surely has a point.

However, primate models have been notoriously poor analogues for human
disease, and this has been widely acknowledged amongst the scientific
community. Aids research using our closest relative, the chimpanzee, has for
the last 20 years proved worthless in finding a cure. Stroke research has
fared no better, and this month New Scientist has reported a finding that
erroneous primate research into multiple sclerosis has denied us a cure.

It is time that we abandoned the myopic and misguided belief that primate
experiments are going to help human suffering. Funding directed into
developing technology that will relieve human beings of these terrible
diseases, technology that already exists, is sorely needed.
PAUL WARD (Director), HEAL -
The Human Health and Animal Experimentation Trust
------------------------------------------------------

Too much credit for animal experiments (in an Israeli paper)

Regarding "Black angel for blue children" by Itzhak Kronzon, July 11, 2003:

Your excellent article was marred by the undue credit given to animal experiments performed by Alfred Blalock. The major medical breakthroughs of our time have often been attributed to animal experiments, rather than clinical observation of actual patients. Medical history and common sense tell us that whatever is discovered using animals must be rediscovered on humans, since animal anatomy and physiology cannot reveal complications which occur only in humans. In other words, the human cost in terms of lives lost or serious life-threatening complications, based on misleading results, wipes out any so-called advances made through animal experiments.  Andre Menache, DVM

subsequent vivisection letters          subsequent vivisection article