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Nancy Rothwell can justify vivisection only by raising irrelevant issues (Columnist, September 17). She says donations to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals normally exceed those to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. In fact, the opposite is true. She considers veterinary bills excessive but overlooks the fact that the National Health Service shields people from a knowledge of its high costs. She refers to animals killed for meat and killed by cats. But what relevance do these have to animal experimentation?

Yet she fails to mention a survey of 500 GPs that shows a staggering level of distrust in results from animal experiments and she overlooks those who had their lives ruined by "safe" animal-tested drugs. Adverse reactions to prescription drugs is the fourth leading cause of death in the US. And this is supposed to be "science"?

Gillian D. Russell
Aberdeen