YOUR correspondent Aled Jones (Picture the grief, Readers' Letters, September 3) has in my opinion made one of the most crass and insensitive statements I've seen in a long, long time and I think he should apologise immediately for it.

Comparing humane experiments on animals with the holocaust is beyond belief and that is exactly what is being implied by his saying, (after the hysterical outpourings about Gordon Brown spending our taxes poisoning defenceless animals, and beagle puppies being locked in dimly-lit metal chambers etc. etc.), "These are our modern Dachaus, Auchwitzes, our Birchenaus".

The murder of millions of human beings by the Nazis in the Second World War cannot, nor must not, be compared to the use of animals in perfecting drugs for, among other things, helping to cure the sufferings of other animals (including the human animal).

Philip Roe, Roman Avenue South, Stamford Bridge.