Letters

THE Phillips report on BSE/vCJD has profound implications for everyone in Britain. Because of the timescale involved in many dietary diseases, it's vital we learn the lessons from this catastrophe, if only for the sake of our children.

For years, Viva! warned of the dangers from BSE; warnings based on the opinions of knowledgeable scientists - the same scientists the Government ignored because it didn't like what they were saying. These scientists are still issuing warnings and are still being ignored.

Lord Phillips has identified intensive farming as one of the primary causes of BSE, yet intensive farming continues - squalid, overcrowded units where feed is entirely unnatural and the conditions unsanitary.

Almost all pig meat, chicken and turkey is intensively reared indoors - and even animals kept outdoors, such as dairy cows, are increasingly being pushed beyond their ability to cope. The result is a string of diseases that have to be controlled - often not very successfully - with antibiotics and other drugs.

The warning signs couldn't be clearer - deadly, uncontrollable superbugs, which threaten human health, virulent new strains of salmonella and E-coli and growing epidemics of food poisoning from meat and dairy products. Major reports have warned of the catastrophe which beckons unless action is taken but the survival of the meat industry has again been put before human health.

What we are doing to farmed animals is a welfare disaster - but an imminent human disaster also. The current glorification of pig farmers, because they are going through hard times, is doing no one a favour and is stifling debate.

The Government must act urgently on the evidence that is staring it in the face - modern, intensive farming is unnatural, unsustainable, cruel and the seeds of another human catastrophe are already germinating. But this one has even greater destructive potential than BSE. - Tony Wardle, Deputy Director, Viva! Brighton.

HEALTH CHARITIES

AS Christmas approaches, many people will be making donations to charitable causes. But where does that money go? To assist those who want to help people without hurting animals, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has compiled a guide which categorises health charities according to their animal experimentation policies.

Most people would be horrified to learn that millions of animals are killed in pointless experiments funded by British health charities. One such charity, the British Heart Foundation, has bankrolled a litany of experiments using cats and dogs. In one, dogs' blood vessels and nerves were cut away, the dogs were implanted with electrodes and injected with other dogs' blood. This was done to determine how blood is stored in the liver, although researchers acknowledge that dogs and humans store their blood in different ways.

Like so many other animal experiments, this one not only caused the death and suffering of animals, but bore no relation to human disease. In fact, over the years, animal tests have often led scientists in the wrong direction, thus setting back medical progress.

Thankfully, there are dozens of forward-thinking health charities that fund humane, modern and effective non-animal research - such as human cell and tissue cultures, complex computer modelling and scanning techniques and human epidemiological studies - as well as administering care to people who are already sick.

Please write to PETA (PO Box 3169, London SWI S 4WJ) for a free health charity guide. You can ensure that your next donation to a health charity is put to good use funding humane research to prevent and cure diseases, all without hurting a living being. - Pam Lightfoot, Northumberland.

OLD FOLKS HOME

I SINCERELY hope the report of the closure of an old people's home in Scarborough is not as cruel as it sounds (Echo, Oct 23). It says that the elderly residents have been told they have 72 hours to find alternative accommodation.

The home may be in desperate financial difficulties, but how can elderly people, probably many of them infirm and without relatives living nearby, possibly sort out new accommodation for themselves at such short notice?

Let us hope the report only gave the barest overview of the situation and that the owners of the home are indeed giving all the care and support needed to their ex-residents at what must be a most traumatic time for all concerned. - EA Moralee, Billingham.

CABINET MEETINGS

IN THE October edition of Inform, an article on council cabinets reveals that Sedgefield Borough Council is to consider opening the doors of its cabinet meetings to members of the Press and the public, because there were few matters which required discussion in private (an obvious dislike for the word secret) which makes one wonder about the criteria used to judge that secret meetings were necessary in the first place.

The article goes on to say the decision for more openness exceeds central government proposals, conveniently overlooking the fact that secret cabinet meetings were not obligatory in the first place as is now demonstrated by this decision.

Sedgefield Borough Council was among the first to opt for secret meetings, despite stinging criticism by the opposition, Press and the public. It is only now also that any explanation for the need for secret meetings is offered. Council leader, Coun Brian Stephens, states: "Meetings of the cabinet have been held in private in order to encourage full and frank debate by both members and officers". What claptrap. Does he really mean when the Press, opposition and the public are present members and officers will not have frank and full discussions?

This whole saga is a disgrace and only serves to show how this council has little or no regard for the public it is supposed to serve. - PA Eddy, Spennymoor.