Sir, Animal rights extremism causes human suffering — not least in the realm of those law-abiding, hard-working people, whose livelihoods depend on working with animals (reports, Mar 14). Many professionals in the UK, including lawyers and vets, work for and with companies whose research keeps us (and our animals) safe and helps human knowledge to advance. The skilful and careful work of veterinary surgeons and scientists leads to the alleviation of human and animal suffering. Where absolutely necessary, it also involves animal testing. The UK leads the world in its respect for animals and their welfare, as it does in the many types of medical research which depend on testing on both humans and animals.
Animal research is as tightly regulated here as in any country in the world. In my work as a regulatory lawyer, I have seldom come across a professional who did not subscribe to the very highest principles of animal welfare. The regulatory regimes within which we have to work are formidable indeed and you may be assured that nobody wants to be accused of breaking them.
Those who work with animals routinely have to endure the “campaigning processes” of the animal rights movement. Some of these are euphemistically described as “fairgaming” and “home visits”. These are illegal and intolerable, but hard to investigate. P&O’s reference to “enormous pressures” belies a number of far more serious and illegal activities. For example, an earlier campaign of letter-bombing at ferry companies. Stena recently followed DFDS and P&O in halting the carriage of test animals and such animals have not been permitted in the Channel Tunnel. No UK-based airline is prepared to transport animals for research to the UK.
The world of commerce is not fickle, but it is very flexible. We should not shy away from the fact that there is a lot of money to be made and very important jobs at stake. Making advanced medical products that are actually safe is very profitable. However, when a profitable trade becomes more trouble than it is worth in a particular location, it will relocate.
Do those who subscribe to the animal rights agenda really wish to see more animal-based testing and research relocating to other jurisdictions without the UK’s tradition of animal welfare and its longstanding, tight and zealously enforced, systems of regulation?
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Jonathan Rich
London EC4
Sir, What gives those of us who put ourselves forward as wishing to abide by a set of moral principles the right, in order to benefit ourselves, to experiment with and mutilate our fellow creatures? That we feel the need to do it “humanely” — a term that has a whiff of unintended irony — suggests that we are not as comfortable with it as you assert that we should be (leading article, Mar 14). How would we feel if a species superior to us used us in the same way for its own ends?
Tony Phillips
Chalfont St Giles, Bucks