I have written many letters criticising the national media s prejudice against compassionate and peaceful animal rights activists, and have failed to be published. Is this because I have objected to the terms animal rights extremists and animal right

I have written many letters criticising the national media's prejudice against compassionate and peaceful animal rights activists, and have failed to be published.

Is this because I have objected to the terms ''animal rights extremists'' and 'animal rights terrorists''; because I criticise the animal research industry, pharmaceutical companies and the government for hoodwinking us into believing that animal research is helping humans; and because I have dared to suggest that diverting the millions (much of which is taxpayers' money) of funding away from animal research into real science will actually find cures for human diseases? Surely advertising, revenue and profits have nothing to do with it. Despite what the government would like us to believe, anti-vivisectionists and animal rights campaigners are pro-science, pro-cures and pro-life.

Three million animals every year in this country alone are used in horrific and painful procedures, yet these are not the only losers and victims. The others are the human victims dying of cancer, strokes, heart disease, Alzheimer's Disease, multiple sclerosis, etc, because the fraudulent science of animal research is preventing cures for human diseases.

All we ever hear about is yet another treatment (i.e. drug) which adds to the profits of the pharmaceutical companies.

Drugs are supposedly safety tested on animals, yet time and again the pharmaceutical corporations have to withdraw drugs because of serious side effects, including death, in humans.

In 2006, the British Medical Association announced that at least 250,000 people are hospitalised every year as a result of adverse drug reactions. An earlier survey revealed that the annual death toll could be as high as 10,000. A 2004 study found that damaging side-effects of drugs are responsible for four per cent of hospital bed capacity and cost the NHS £466m a year.

Many scientifically reliable research methods already exist: microdosing, DNA chips, microfluidics chips, human tissue, computer modelling, autopsies, epidemiology, human stem cell research, new imaging technologies and, of course, prevention. But how much money is there in cures for human diseases for the pharmceutical conglomerates and those that equally profit from their revenue?

Submitted By

Pamela Kinnunen