Sir, - Poor Andi, the world's first genetically modified monkey. How dare scientists think they have the right to bring monkeys into the world for the express purpose of making them suffer with disease and die a horrible death poisoned by toxic drugs?
Monkeys are fascinating to us because they are so like us, which is precisely why scientists want to experiment on them. But like us, monkeys feel pain, fear and many other emotions, so surely we have a duty to protect and respect them.
Andi may be spared, but his birth has now condemned generations of his relatives to an awful life: behind the bars of a sterile laboratory cage, probably alone, suffering from any hideous physical or mental conditions that misguided scientists wish to inflict on them.
Good scientific research is vital, but trying to mimic human diseases in curious, intelligent and sensitive monkeys is certainly not good science. It is callous, cruel and wrong. - Yours, etc.,
Yvonne Smalley, Irish Anti-Vivisection Society, Greystones, Co Wicklow.