Tally of suffering
Recent figures (The Scotsman, 21 July) confirmed the largest number of animal experiments since 1982 and the sharpest rise since records began in the 1940s.
Over three and a half million individual animals suffered and died in UK laboratories in 2008: in 2006 the number was below three million.
The number of animals is rocketing up while the number of new medical treatments is going down – 90 per cent of drugs that pass animal trials fail in humans.
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Hide AdAs the government approves every experiment on every animal in advance, what the public needs, more than statistics, is to know how decisions are being made and if anyone is regulating the regulators.
ALISTAIR CURRIE
Policy adviser
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
London