Dear Jeremy...
Jeremy Clarkson who writes a column for The Sun does my head in. Every so often he added a piece which portrays how little he cares about animals. In today’s newspaper he brings up the new animal testing numbers - the 2008 figures have risen 14% since 2007. 3.7 million animal tests were conducted in the UK in 2008. An appalling number. A sad figure. A really disgusting fact. Jeremy is FOR these tests to continue.
How many new cures do you think we have found? How come people are still dying of cancer? How come with have no new miraculous drugs that save lives? It’s because no matter how many animals humans abuse or torture the fact is they’re not the same as humans so the drug result is not likely to be the same as on humans. Why don’t people like Clarkson understand this?
After reading Clarkson’s column and getting wound up as I usually do, I have just written him the following email (no doubt he won’t read it, or if he does, which I doubt, I would be surprised if his brain actually comprehended any of it).
Dear Mr Clarkson,
I was disappointed (as usual) to read your column - since you wrote AGAIN about how you don’t care about animals being tested up. You pointed out how Vioxx was tested on animals and then caused a mass number of heart attacks and strokes on humans. You also mentioned the drug that was tested on animals before making six human volunteers very ill. I think you don’t understand - surely that in itself tells you that the animal tests are pointless. The animal testing that they went through before moving onto humans showed that the drugs were ok - else they would not have gone on to people. You are saying that you agree with animal tests - yet if these animal tests continue more people are going to end up like those that tried Vioxx and these other drugs. Surely you can comprehend that? If animal tests were so trustworthy, why did these drugs get passed yet then fail on the humans? It just goes to show that animals and humans are completely different species and that when testing a drug on animals its result probably won’t be the same on a person.
There are organisations such as Dr Hadwen Trust (see http://www.drhadwentrust.org/) that fund non-animal research such as cell culture, micro organisms and computer models. A drug would NOT go directly to a person - yet it has more chance of working than via animal tests which are as efficient as flipping a coin. I hope you will read up on these humane research methods. You can also visit http://www.safermedicines.org/ which has further info on how useless animal tests are.
Also, I imagine people with unfortunate diseases or conditions would rather be a guinea pig and get to test a new drug rather than having to wait for it to go through all the animal tests anyway. While we’re waiting for these animal tests to work, people are dying. I guess you don’t care about that, huh?
Shari Black Velvet
PS. How many more years are we going to wait for a cure for cancer? How many years have they been testing on animals and what cure have they found? People like Farrah Fawcett went through three years or more of chemo and pain and trying drugs for nothing. Why? Because those animal tests are not working. And they will continue to not work, until the government puts money into humane research methods. We’re not living in the dinosaur age. We have the power to progress rather than continuing to tread water. Think about it!
