IN RESPONSE to Rachel Astill-Dunseith's letter, Protest Vigils Are Completely Justified (News Shopper, January 12), her mother most probably survived her cancer due to drugs which were developed through animal testing.

Would she have preferred it if these drugs were never produced? Without animal testing, they could not have been used on her mother.

As her mother survived, treatments tested on animals can be effective, so it is quite possible there are many more potential treatments we have not yet discovered.

Maybe we will never find a cure for cancer but it is likely we will find more efficient ways of treating it.

If I developed cancer, I would regard my life above an animal's.

ROSEMARY JESSOP

ADDRESS SUPPLIED