Eternal Treblinka (From York Press)

Eternal Treblinka

11:30am Tuesday 18th September 2007 in Letters By Reader's letter

PAT Gaughan (Beggars belief, Letters, September 15) said Aled Jones's referral to those who abuse animals as Nazis "beggars belief", which may well have been the case had not a Jewish man been the first person to make this comparison (a famous writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer).

To quote him: "In relation to them animals, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."

As for Pat's asking if Aled has ever used medicine for headache, the answer is quite probably yes.

He may well have used aspirin, which we are all lucky to have; it killed all the guinea pigs it was tested on but put on the market anyway as its creators declared animal experiments weren't that reliable in predicting drug reactions in humans.

What a good job for us all they ignored the animal tests, but such a pointless waste of life for the guinea pigs.

Vivisection exists purely to fast-track drugs on to the market, and protect pharmaceutical companies from litigation should their drugs maim or kill anyone. In short, it is big business. It doesn't prove the efficacy or safety of drugs when given to humans.

All drugs available to us have no doubt been animal-tested, there is no choice in this, but this isn't the reason they exist. They would exist anyway, but would no doubt be safer, and side-effects from drugs would no longer be one of the four biggest killers in the West. If you would like more information on the inadequacies of animal experiments, see www.curedisease.com, www.siav.org, and www.navs.org.uk Sarah Bramley, Gordon Street, York.