 THE
ANIMAL HEALTH TRUST
Riding for a fall
Following the publication of Riding
for a Fall, which detailed some of the cruel and painful experiments carried
out by the Animal Health Trust veterinary charity, we asked our supporters to
register their feelings with the AHT.
What follows is the standard reply being sent by the
Animal Health Trust to people who have written to them after learning from Animal
Aid about the painful horse experiments the trust has been conducting.
Dear .....................
I received your letter today with much dismay and it is clear that Animal Aid
has prompted your concerns.
I much regret that you have been seriously misinformed on what we do and why.
Further, I have to say that your letter is particularly distressing to me and
my 40 veterinary colleagues, when our sole interest is preventing the main compromise
to animal welfare, that of disease. The Animal Health Trust should be judged
on its 60 years of work in disease prevention and the notable successes it has
had in eliminating pain, suffering and death due to a great many infectious
and disease conditions affecting many species of animals, both domestic and
wild.
If you have animals yourself, it is almost definite that their lives will have
been helped by the work of the Animal Health Trust.
I do hope that this short note will help to allay some of your concerns.
Yours sincerely
EA Chandler BVetMed FRCVS
Executive Chairman, Animal Health Trust
Animal Aid has produced the following response:
Mr E. A. Chandler
Animal Health Trust
Lanwades Park
Kentford
Newmarket
Suffolk
CB8 7UU
5th June 2003
Dear Mr Chandler
Animal Aid would like to take issue with the misleading letters you have been
distributing, regarding our new horse racing report. A number of our supporters
have contacted us, as they are entirely unsatisfied with the emotive way in
which you have addressed their concerns about the animal experiments you have
conducted.
You accuse us of 'misinforming' people about the nature of your work.
Everything stated in our report is factual, much of it taken from scientific
papers, some of which the AHT has itself published. Regardless of your stated
intentions, the fact remains that you have conducted painful experiments on
horses, often on low-value Welsh mountain ponies. Many of the experiments end
with the animals being killed. It is these experiments that our supporters are
taking exception to, yet you have chosen not to address this issue.
Our supporters are additionally concerned to learn that some of the funding
for such experiments has come from commercial horse racing interests - and we
note that, together with the British Horseracing Board, you have set up a business
enterprise, called Equine Genetics Research. One of its objectives, according
to a newspaper account, is to 'identify genes which may hinder [racehorses']
performance'. As well as the BHB, research money related to the new enterprise
has come from the Horserace Betting Levy Board.
We appreciate that veterinary medicine is important, but it is unfair and obscures
the central issue when you play on people's emotions by implying that the
health of their own companion animals depends on the AHT being allowed to continue,
without question, its current activities.
There are plenty of non-animal methods for testing medicines, and it is entirely
unacceptable that an organisation such as your own, which professes to care
about animals, can perform painful experiments on them. It cannot possibly be
morally right to experiment on one animal in an attempt to save the life of
another, just as it would be wrong to experiment on one child hoping to save
a different child.
I ask you therefore, in future, to address the specific concerns outlined.
I look forward to receiving your reply on this matter.
Yours sincerely
Becky Lilly
Campaigns Officer, Animal Aid
|
