IF you give to Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation, Parkinson's UK or the Alzheimer's Society, some of your donation is paying for animal experiments.

Together, the annual income of these four charities is around £800 million a year. How much of this goes to funding animal experiments, they will not say.

Why don't they want it to be made public? It isn't only these four large charities, countless others do but there are many that don't.

People who are opposed to animals being used for medical research are not against medical research at all.

What we want is an alternative research using, for example, tissue cells. This is more accurate and reliable in many cases than cruel and unnecessary animal experiments, which can be unreliable and, in some cases, misleading.

Two examples are that penicillin kills guinea pigs and how dangerous Thalidomide was after proving safe in animals.

Why is it that after many years of animal experiments, the number of people developing cancer and heart disease is escalating?

Animal Aid's campaign is to ask people to boycott charities, especially the big four, as above, until they stop using animals.

We also believe that the Government should look at giving funding to current alternative research and to promote this method.

This high-profile campaign has had widespread national and regional media coverage and September will see a big boost with national advertisements.

Animal Aid can be contacted at info@animalaid. org.uk.

Dawn Spencer

Dovedale Crescent

Belper