Letter

Is there an animal alternative?

Dear healthmatters — ‘Bye-bye Fido’ joked one supporter of animal experiments in Channel 4’s Peoples Parliament, which recently debated their use in medical research. Others presented their case for vivisection mostly from self-interest with more than a dash of ignorance, and all, of course, simply loved animals. With friends like these who needs enemies?

But what about the kind of health care imposed upon us today? Human experimentation on a vast and escalating scale, an inevitable consequence of basing results for people on other species, and medicaments and treatments that can literally cure you to death.

Our fear of disease has been the scientists’ most powerful weapon making us willing pawns in a deadly game.

Is there an alternative method to one as insidious and potentially damaging as this? Just as a slightly faulty compass on a long sea voyage may ensure you never reach your destination, even the smallest dissimilarity between us and other species can nullify any potential predictive value for humans.

There is a great deal of evidence freely available to show that progress comes about despite animal research, not because of it, and that animal experiments and human experiments are all the same to those for whom profit, prestige and career advancement are paramount.

Despite its limitations the Channel Four programme was ground-breaking stuff, if only for publicly daring to suggest animal research is such a flawed method that it should be abolished.

On behalf of animals and equally vulnerable humans, I second that unequivocally.