I SEE Malvern Friends of Cancer Research UK collected a fine sum of £760 recently (Malvern Gazette August 31).

I wonder though whether they are aware that Cancer Research UK will be spending a fair portion of that on animal research.

Apart from species differences which make this research questionable, a group of eminent neuroscientists and others, including Stephen Hawking, recently signed a declaration that animal and human consciousness is the same.

I believe scientists have always known this, otherwise where would be the point in, say, maternal deprivation experiments on baby monkeys, unless the results were thought to be applicable to humans?

Now that science itself is publicly acknowledging the similarity between our and other animals’ consciousness, how do we reconcile the infliction of pain and suffering on them with a view to alleviating our own?

With this revelation it surely becomes untenable.

May I suggest that Malvern Friends of Cancer Research UK request that their contribution be used for non-animal work, to the benefit of humans and animals alike?

ROBERTA BALFOUR

Malvern