Letter: This vegan no wimp

Sir: If it is true that, following his withdrawal from hunger strike, Barry Horne is not suffering irreversible damage to his body (report, 14 December), then all I can say is, he is one hell of an advertisement for the vegan diet he has followed for more than a decade.

Nobody has suggested that he ate solid food, merely that he used sugared water, sweetened tea and fruit juice at one brief moment. He must have been possessed of a level of health to begin with that puts two fingers up to those who think we vegans are all whey-faced and reliant on supplements to avoid life-threatening malnutrition. And Mr Horne is not a young man; he is 46.

If we don't yet have our Royal Commission on animal experiments, we at least have in Barry Horne, who has put his body through the ultimate fitness test, living proof of the healthiness of the vegan diet.

VALERIE PAYNTER

Hove, East Sussex