Animal tests are vital

Animal research is not intended to supply us with all the answers on the safety of a new medicine, as Ross Minett (Letters, 16 May) seems to think. But it remains an essential step on the road to assessing a medicine’s safety profile.

Yes, side-effects can occur after a medicine’s launch, even with all the subsequent trials in humans. If a reaction is rare - say, one in 10,000 or more - this is hardly surprising, and it is why new medicines are monitored by industry and regulators so carefully.

Every medicine available for patients has undergone animal testing, so it is quite untrue to suggest that it somehow hinders the process.

The pharmaceutical industry looks forward to the day when computer simulation and other techniques will obviate the need for such research - but it is still a long way off.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to single out any one element of the lengthy and exhaustive process of developing a new medicine as being pointless because side-effects are identified after its launch.

LOUISE BEREND

Public affairs executive, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry

Whitehall

London