Madam, - "Whatever else the animal liberationists have done, they have made us face up to what an ugly business animal experimentation is." So says the former British Labour MP, Roy Hattersley, writing in the Guardian in response to the announcement by the UK Government of tough new police powers to arrest animal rights activists who demonstrate outside scientists' homes.
The business of animal experimentation (and it is a very big business indeed) is funded almost entirely by governments and the pharmaceutical industry; yet an increasing number of medical professionals recognise that it is false and misleading science to experiment on rats, guinea pigs and fish (to name but a few of the innocent victims) and to use those results as proof that the information gleaned can be applied to humans.
But where there is profit to be made, there will always be people willing to debase themselves in its pursuit. And truly we debase ourselves as human beings when we so cruelly and callously perform experiments on live animals. - Yours, etc.,
GERRY BOLAND, Animals in Crisis, Keadue, Co Roscommon.