13 January 2009

Letters Editor
Herald
200 Renfield Street
Glasgow
G2 3PR

Sir,

I must respond to Alyn Smith’s letter in yesterday’s Herald (‘Animal testing has medical and financial benefits’ January 12). He accuses me of being misleading, wrong and bordering on offensive. I say he should look to the plank in his own eye before he goes around accusing others.

My position of being in favour of bringing research on primates to an end as soon as possible has never been clearer. I do not try to mislead my constituents. But here we have the same Alyn Smith MEP who signed the European Parliament Written Declaration ‘on primates in scientific experiments’ urging the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament to use the revision process of Directive 86/609/EC as an opportunity to: ‘make ending the use of apes and wild-caught monkeys in scientific experiments an urgent priority’ and; ‘establish a timetable for replacing the use of primates in scientific experiments with alternatives’, now stating that the ‘use of primates in experiments is regrettable’ and that, because of financial gain to ‘Scotland’s flourishing biotech sector’, we should continue to carry out primate experiments, subject to strict controls ‘until we no longer have to’ – I am sorry but I am confused, does he want to end primate experiments or not? Does this now depend on how much money we are making?.

He also takes me to task because I believe it is to Scotland’s moral shame that we carry out more experiments on primates per head than any other country in the European Union. Mr Smith’s take on this is not to deny it. He states: ‘coverage suggests a disproportionate amount of animal experiments are carried out in Scotland. Perhaps...’. But nonetheless he, for one, is ‘... proud that the contribution Scotland has made, is making, and will continue to make, to human knowledge and the fight against disease’. I would suggest that Alyn is confused and is conflating scientific knowledge with experiments on primates. I want scientific progress also but I believe we can get it without doing experiments on monkeys, our closest genetic relations. I would suggest that perhaps his judgement of the ethics in this case is being clouded by his obsession with nationalism and any perceived slight to Scotland. I am Scottish and proud to be Scottish but still want primate experimentation to end as soon as possible. It is my belief that in failing to set a reasonable deadline to the end of experimentation on monkeys, we will also be failing to create a significant impetus for the search for alternatives, a search I would like to see Scotland in the forefront of.

Mr Smith then goes on to add insult to injury by arguing that: ‘even from a self-interested perspective, there are more than 30,000 people in quality well-paid jobs in Scotland who are involved in the biotech sector, worth at least £3.8bn to Scotland’s economy. I like his use of ‘even’; perhaps we are getting to the nub of the argument and Alyn Smith’s volte face, but surely he is confused if he thinks all of the £3.8bn comes from experimenting on monkeys. Yes he is confused because he then claims’...there are hardly any experiments on animals’. Can I remind him of the Written Declaration he signed at the European Parliament. It stated that ‘more than 10,000 primates are used in experiments every year in EU laboratories’ and a larger percentage in Scotland.

His next argument comes very close to extreme moral offensiveness: ‘We have seen hysteria and ignorance over GM technology hamstringing plant research in Scotland, let us not for a second allow the same woolly sentiment over this go unchallenged’. And this from an MEP who sits in the Green Group in the European Parliament, I am confused – expediency perhaps? ‘Woolly sentiment’? Is Mr Smith equating the life of a primate with a genetically engineered seed of barley?.

And for the coup de grace he finishes off by claiming: ‘I suspect people in 500 years will look back at us with horror and amusement, much as we do at past medical practice’ I can assure Mr Smith that the many concerned Scots who have been writing to me do not need to wait 500 years to look on in horror – they are doing that now and I am representing their views.

Yours sincerely,
David Martin MEP