Sir, - Occasionally you publish letters condemning vivisection; none (I think) has appeared defending it. Last November you published a piece by Roisin Ingle giving a brief and superficial account of some arguments for and against. Although your science and health features frequently mention experiments on animals, implicitly condoning them, no reasoned defence of the practice has appeared in your columns, nor have you published an adequately presented case against it, although you have had several opportunities to do so.
In our view, vivisection is morally indefensible. It is exploitation of the weak by the strong, of the powerless by the powerful; it is both presumptuous and barbaric. If it cannot be outlawed straight away, it should be phased out over, say, five years.
On April 24th, World Day for Laboratory Animals, vigils and demonstrations will be held in many countries throughout the world, and this is an appropriate time to raise the issue once again. A licence to use animals for research and testing is required only if the experiment is calculated to cause pain. The 74,148 animals used under licence in this Republic in 1997 included dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs as well as the usual rats and mice. Most were used by commercial establishments, universities and colleges.
Looking through half-a-dozen recent issues of the Irish Journal of Medical Science, I find 28 descriptions of experiments on animals (usually rats) involving 70 researchers. Four names occur with particular frequency. It behoves these persons, or perhaps a spokesperson for them, to make some attempt to defend what they are doing. A meaningful debate could then follow on the ethics of their activities. Persistent silence on their part, however, might be construed as rather damning.- Yours, etc., Ruarc Gahan,
Irish Anti-Vivisection Society, Greystones, Co Wicklow.