Ban brutal research
DR MAX PEMBERTON uses emotive language to try to convince people that animal experiments are still valid and ethical (Mail), but the tide is finally turning against this cruel and brutal form of ‘medical research’.
If, as he suggests, animal experiments have helped so much in creating important new medicines for humans then why, after more than 200 years of vivisection, do we now have more sick people than ever?
Millions of animals suffer because the medical and scientific professions refuse to admit that the majority of our illnesses are caused by dietary,
DESPITE coming from a non-medical background, had you asked me at the age of five what i wanted to be, the answer would have been ‘a doctor’. now, just months shy of my 30th birthday and two years into my career, i have started my dream job as a surgeon. it is something i worked hard for. Two degrees and nearly £80,000-worth of debt later, it was worth every hour and every penny. i love my job. Working and training alongside incredibly talented people, and delivering world-class healthcare to anyone who needs it, is a privilege and i can’t imagine doing anything else. every day is different and it is the patients we serve who make the job what it is. i believe i have the best job in the world. The past three months have been challenging, exhausting, and physically and emotionally demanding, but i have been happy every day. But last night i cried. i’ve cried several times over the past few months. once, after a long and difficult shift, having to tell a lady we couldn’t operate, she wouldn’t make it out of the hospital, and trying to console her inconsolable daughter. That was hard. i’ve shed a tear hearing my colleagues speak out against the unsafe and unfair changes to doctors’ contracts, and the overwhelming support we have had from the public, too. But last night was different. i cried for me. i cried for the uncertainty of the job that i love. i cried for the uncertainty of the Nhs that i am so fiercely proud of. i didn’t cry for a pay cheque. i cried because i finally have the job i worked so hard for, and it is everything i hoped it would be, but it is getting harder and harder to go to work every morning. i cried because if the contract changes go through, i really don’t know what i will do. i cried because one day i want a family lifestyle, environmental and emotional factors.
There are now many other ways of conducting medical research that don’t involve animals — such as computer modelling, epidemiological testing, human tissue systems and scanning technologies.
People can speed the change by refusing to support charities that continue to inflict pain and fear on animals in cruel, outdated ‘research’.
JULIE BARRIE, aspley, notts. with my incredible, supportive husband, who already loses me to work most weekends and evenings and nights. He makes excuses for me at family weddings and birthdays, and has spent the past three Christmases alone. i cried because this new contract will make me choose between children and the job i love — a position which is not unique to medicine, i know, but will penalise me for choosing a family. i cried for every other hardworking junior doctor who is holding together a system the government is trying to tear apart. i cried for the nhs and the fact that we never seem to truly know how great a thing is until it is gone. Last night i cried, but this morning i am defiant. david Cameron and Jeremy Hunt are just two, but we are many, and i speak with the voice of 50,000 junior doctors when i say we will not let this happen. By refusing to negotiate on all but one clause of an unsafe and unfair contract, the department of Health and NHS employers have put us in an impossible position. The British Medical association, which represents all Uk doctors, is balloting for industrial action. For the first time in four decades, junior doctors could strike. This is not a decision we would take lightly and not something we would ever wish to do. it is a decision we would make with a heavy heart and a sense of injustice, born from two-and-a-half years of being unheard in our negotiations for fairer and safer working conditions. We want you to know we are sorry it has come to this. We want you to know that, yes, we do it for us — but that, most of all, we do it for you. We do it for our patients, so that we can continue to deliver the best care we can, in the world’s best healthcare system. We do it for you, so that tomorrow there is still an NHS for your children and grandchildren to be born into; to grow old in. We already provide a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week service, free at the point of access, for anyone and everyone who needs it — and it is the best in the world. The proposed contract changes are the beginning of the end for the NHS. in the words of nye Bevan, ‘the NHS will exist as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it’ — and i urge you to fight for it. Stand with us. We cannot do this without you.
Dr DANIELLE BANFIELD, Somerset.