Letters: Experiments on primates

Case for experiments on primates has not been proven

Sir: As you report, a team of experts has said that there was a strong scientific and moral case for using non-human primates in some research. This report was based on a very small sample of the primate research carried out in this country, and it focused on very severe human diseases. Yet it is already being interpreted as making the case for all primate research. Let us not forget that the vast majority of primate use is in toxicity testing and the validity and justification of this use was not explored.

In its submissions the RSPCA asked the working party to take a more innovative approach and ask how scientific goals could be met without resort to primates, rather than to continue with the traditional questions about why they are needed. There is no evidence to suggest they have done this. So even in the fields covered, we question whether the working party was sufficiently challenging and critical of the validity and need for primate research. They themselves point out that research is un-coordinated and fragmented and there is no real review of outcomes. How, then can it be possible to conclude the research is valid and justified?

Yet on this basis primates are transported across the world, confined in small barren cages and subjected to painful experiments. Primates are highly intelligent animals that inhabit complex natural environments as any natural history programme will show. These animals deserve better than this.

MAGGY JENNINGS

SENIOR SCIENTIST, RSPCA, SOUTHWATER, WEST SUSSEX

Sir: I would have thought that with the growing human population and its resultant pollution, it would make far more sense to experiment on humans, as they are far more expendable than the rapidly diminishing primate population.

STEVE BRICKLE

BIARRITZ, FRANCE

Reduce the danger to sex workers

Sir: In response to the 2004 Home Office prostitution review, I suggested the safe house scheme used successfully in Sydney, Australia, which has seen a significant reduction in violence against streetworkers and is being considered in New Zealand. Why is it not being considered here?

The Ipswich murders make the case for a reconsideration of the idea especially since women with drug habits are unlikely to stay off the streets for long, as Deborah Orr (13 December) points out. It eliminates the need to get into strangers' cars, by providing secure premises within or close to toleration zones in existing red-light areas.

The streetworkers unable to secure employment in mainstream jobs or elsewhere in the sex industry can rent the facilities each time they meet a client, while remaining autonomous. It enables tracking of vulnerable workers as sex workers need to sign in and out when using the safe house - especially relevant in the light of the recent murders. It could be enhanced with health, rehab and jobskills services and break the cycle of drug addiction, dangerous work and the fines/ASBO revolving door. It also reduces disturbance for local residents.

MICHAELA WARNER

LONDON E2 'MICHAELA WARNER' IS THE WRITER'S PROFESSIONAL NAME

Sir: Escort agencies are available quite legally by the dozen on the internet, and no public outrage is expressed. But the girls who thus advertise find themselves in a legal limbo.

Within an arc across London from Kensington, Paddington to King's Cross hundreds of girls meet thousands of men discreetly, but the headline "rates" charged hide who are the real recipients. Frequently, a third will go to the agency, and another third to "security", often criminal gangs from Eastern Europe. Their control is enforced by threats and "fines". Not a penny of the thousands of pounds a week paid by "customers" goes to the UK Exchequer.

Legalisation and proper regulation could not only cut the flow of huge amounts of money to international crime syndicates, it would boost Exchequer revenues, boost net earnings, (Gordon would demand less than "security"), thus allowing those who do it for short-term reasons, and there are many from Eastern Europe in this category, to realise their aims and leave more quickly, and it would provide an environment where threats were at least less easy to issue and enforce. Street prostitution could then quite properly be banned, enforced firmly and equally against both men and women because it would be unregulated.

Quietly, adultery, gaming and homosexual acts have been removed from being directly criminal behaviour. Few demand their return. In a liberal democracy we are not required to approve of all the activities of our neighbours. Is there a serious argument against legalising prostitution or are we still governed by "Victorian" double standards?

NICHOLAS CRAMPTON

MUNDFORD, NORFOLK

Sir: Prostitutes in Ipswich are in danger when at work. They are working to fund their drug addictions. Couldn't the police or other government agency give them free heroin and crack cocaine - at least until the killer is caught? This is the only way to get these women off the streets and out of this danger.

THE REVD OLIVER HARRISON

MAIDSTONE, KENT

A question for the Diana theorists

Sir: In her article "I'm with the conspiracy theorists on Diana's death" (12 December) Mary Dejevsky asks a number of questions, such why the Ritz's CCTV cameras were not working, what was the white car in the tunnel and why the driver was being paid by French security. She sees issues like these as pointing towards a conspiracy.

However, there is one obvious question she did not ask. Why would the members of a conspiracy rely on the vagaries of a car accident to achieve their ends? Expert opinion indicates that had Diana been wearing her seatbelt, she would have survived the accident - as did her bodyguard who was sitting in the more vulnerable front seat.

Diana did not die because of a conspiracy but because she was foolish enough to sit in the back of a speeding car - one being driven dangerously fast by someone who had drunk too much - without taking the simple, obvious precaution of putting on a seat belt. Or do the conspiracy theorists argue that her belt was tampered with?

It's time to recognise that although her death was sad - and tragic for her sons - it was avoidable and was, in large part, her own fault.

KEVIN MILLER

PENSHURST, KENT

Biolfuels will not save the climate

Sir: It's time to nail the lie that bio-fuels are carbon-neutral. ("Brown's 'green' tax changes hit biofuel", 8 December). Growing crops for bio-fuel absorbs the carbon that bio-fuels emit, but it does not remove the emissions created in planting, fertilising, harvesting, transporting and processing these crops before they can be made into fuel.

Bio-fuels are not green. The EU demands that 5.75 per cent of all road fuel should be biofuel by next year but we will have to import the crops to meet this target because Europe does not have enough agricultural land. In Brazil they cut down the rain forest to grow more sugar cane for ethanol; in Malaysia they cut down the rain forest to grow oil palms; in the US they subsidise the production of ethanol from wheat and maize, leaving less grain surpluses for needy nations.

In the face of climate change and energy shortages we are desperately seeking substitute fuels so that we can continue our present lifestyles. It is time we managed energy demand rather than assuming we will always be able to expand supply.

ANTHONY DAY

YORK

Someone owes us an apology

Sir: We read much about personal debt and the harm it causes. What is rarely discussed is the potential for distress to those who buy houses from indebted individuals.

On the day we moved in, bailiffs came to repossess the previous owner's car and during the first months in the property we were woken in the early morning on a number of occasions by debt collectors arriving to serve notices for repossession of various items. There then followed a deluge of summonses for non-payment of parking fines, because our vendors had not re-registered their cars at their new address. Several times I had to provide documentary proof that I was not the person named in the summons.

It would seem that there is no duty on the part of debt-collection agencies to verify whether or not the individual still lives at the address before they visit or send a letter, and there is no central database against which details can be checked. Every local authority wishing to pursue a parking summons uses a different agency to collect the money, and every time I have to ring them up or produce evidence of my identity.

This week, five years after moving in, I received another letter from a credit-card company demanding payment of a large sum.

Needless to say, I have never had a forwarding address for the previous owners but have referred agencies to their solicitor. I have no way of knowing whether my address is still being given by someone else.

Nobody's interests are served by this "system" except those of the debtor.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

European insult to Bulgaria

Sir: As one who spent many years travelling round Bulgaria in search of authentic folk music between the 1976 and 1993, may I put in a word for the Bulgarians I came to know (letter, 8 December)?

In researching folk music I followed in the footsteps of the marvellous Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, visiting and recording instrumental playing and singing of the Bulgarian people, old and young, and got to know the real people in all parts of the country. They were an absolute delight and gave me so much without ever asking for anything in return.

Naturally, they had, and still have, my admiration and true friendship. I find it disgusting that our politicians should talk of admitting them to the "European Union" on certain conditions only. If we are to have a true European union surely all its members should have the same rights. Otherwise, change its name to, say, "European Club"

ROBERT SHAND

SEAFORD, EAST SUSSEX

Lords opposition to assisted dying

Sir: According to Joan Bakewell (Opinion, 8 December) the 20-odd bishops who sit in the House of Lords were "roused to vote in unison" against Lord Joffe's "assisted dying" Bill last May. I don't know know whether Ms Bakewell was present for at the debate, but I was. As can been seen in Hansard, out of over 90 speakers in the eight-hour long debate, just three were bishops. Out of 148 who voted against, just 13 were bishops. Most objections raised against the Bill were not of a religious character, but were concerned with the dangers to public safety of having such a law on the statute book.

LORD McCOLL OF DULWICH

HOUSE OF LORDS

The Holocaust remembered

Sir: In a week when Iran has convened a conference to deny the Holocaust, it is heartening to see young people are increasingly informed here in Britain. According to recent YouGov research three quarters of young people know when the Holocaust took place and 84 per cent have heard of Auschwitz.

We now need to turn our knowledge into action. Hate crime, prejudice and exclusion are the first steps to genocide, and yet they are all around us. Holocaust Memorial Day is a call to remember the past, to learn its lessons and demonstrate respect for those who are different.

DR STEPHEN SMITH

CHAIR HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY TRUST LONDON WC1

Ownerless cats

Sir: Your "Woman's best friend" feature (13 December) on the new bond between upwardly-mobile independent females and cats got one fact horribly wrong. A cat deigns to live with you; no-one actually owns a cat.

RITA GOLDEN

LONDON SW13

Mail by rail

Sir: Barrie Clement is wide of the mark when he suggests mail trains operate only at Christmas (11 December). Both he and W H Auden would be pleased to hear that GB Railfreight runs trains for Royal Mail from Monday to Friday throughout the year between London and Scotland. Around 100 extra rail services will be operating in the run-up to Christmas. And the trains do still run over Beattock - but the climb is a little easier thanks to modern electric traction.

STEVE TURNER

CONTRACTS MANAGER EXPRESS SERVICES GB RAILFREIGHT LONDON E1

Parents in dispute

Sir: Which politician do you suppose is going to be brave enough to suggest that the draconian new measures to recover child support from errant fathers should be accompanied by equally tough action on obdurate mothers? They can defy umpteen court orders to allow fathers access to their children with virtual impunity - and no fear that their children's custody will be reassigned.

ANDREW SCHOFIELD

LONDON SE17

Missing country

Sir: I have several times read reports that there is a plot instigated by the European Union to banish the word "England" from the map of the new Europe. I have ignored this until today as a fanciful rumour put about by anti-EU factions. After reading the label on a Sainsbury's casserole selection pack I begin to wonder. I quote: "Grown by: carrots, Fife, Scotland; swede, Fife, Scotland; onions, Lincs, UK; parsnips, Fife, Scotland."

DR TOM HETHERINGTON

CANTERBURY

Royal success

Sir: At the risk of being identified as a mocha-sipping, Daily Mail-reading friend of Michael Parkinson who values Her Majesty's snap playing skills above those of true working-class sporting heroes, I would like to suggest to Mark Steel (13 December) that on her birth as a "humble princess" the present monarch was not in line to become Queen and has indeed done rather well.

IAN PARTRIDGE

BRADFORD