WHAT a good letter from Roberta Balfour in the September 7 edition of the Malvern Gazette, but I would like to add some information about the alternatives that already exist in the field of medical research.

At present only 22 per cent of the 3 million experiments on animals in the UK are for testing new drugs and replacing these with humane alternatives such as cell cultures.

Imaging machines and computer modelling would be more relevant, efficient and less expensive, yet most of the scientific community seem welded in the past and are very resistant to change.

Surely the human race is advanced enough to understand experimenting on a different species will not produce the results that we are looking for in humans – just think what happened to the thalidomide drug that was put on the market as it was deemed ‘safe’?

Another example is a cancer treatment drug that was tested for four years on both monkeys and mice and found to be effective, until recently used in human cell cultures to find that it killed liver cells.

Similarly, what potential treatments have been lost as a result of them failing animal tests whereas with human beings, they might offer a safe solution.

Please don’t therefore support charities that experiment on animals.

RUTHIE MCNALLY, Malvern.