Tony Blair has foolishly reiterated his support for vivisection. I wonder if he cares about the following: 1. The British Medical Journal says five per cent of all hospital admissions are due to adverse drug reactions, killing 10,000 a year. All the drugs have been passed "safe" in animal tests.
2. Animal experiments failed to show that inhaling tobacco smoke causes cancer.
3. Misleading animal experiments cause researchers to abandon treatments for humans. Alexander Fleming said that misleading results from animal testing almost prevented the discovery of the entire field of antibiotics.
4. Dr Richard Klausner of the US National Cancer Institute said: "We have lost cures for cancer because they were ineffective in mice."
Animal tests continue because they enable powerful companies to market unsafe drugs and products in the knowledge they can defend any claim by saying they carried out the required animal tests.
It is an ingrained practice which would cause loss of prestige and profit to researchers if stopped.
The Government has admitted it has not commissioned or evaluated any formal research on the efficacy of animal experiments and broke its own promise for a Royal Commission investigation into vivisection.
Robert Roach
Address supplied
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