ANDREW Blake's confidence in animal experimentation (Letters, June 3) is grossly misplaced. In the interests of the drugs giants, jobs and money have always taken priority.

A congress of specialist German doctors for internal medicine in Wiesbaden, Germany, confirmed in 1977 that six per cent of all illnesses resulting in death and 25 per cent or all organic diseases are caused by medicines.

Moreover, 61 per cent of all deformities at birth and 88 per cent of all still births are caused by drugs created through the use of animal experiments.

According to Professor Hoff and many other health experts, therapy damage is today the most frequent cause of illness and death.

Although millions of animals are sacrificed every year in research on cancer, diabetes and other diseases, these diseases continue increasing. It is now found that the use of antibiotics (the word meaning "hostile to life") has succeeded in creating ever weaker and more infection prone human beings and ever stronger strains of bacteria.

Clinical observation through the use of human cell tissue or organ cultures painlessly available from biopsies plus computer technology which is now highly developed in this field all produce more reliable, safer and ethical results in diagnosis and treatment of human diseases than animal research.

One wonders, in his advocacy for the continued use of animals in medical research, would Mr Blake and his organisation be willing to be treated by a vet?

SYLVIA NOBLE (Mrs), Albert Road, Colne.

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