Following the letter published in ?Outlook? on June 7th, I would like to give ?l?autre son de cloche? as regards the use of monkeys in biomedical research, particularly in the UK, where the current campaign referred to in the previous letter writer is based.

Monkeys play a vital role in the advancement of human and veterinary medicine. They are used in such areas as aids research, malaria vaccine development, child leukemia, cancer research, polio vaccines, dengue fever, Asian bird flu, developing new generation antibiotics, etc. Tony Blair in a recent declaration put out by the UK Home Office stated: ?Research using animals has saved hundreds of millions of lives. British scientists and institutions are at the forefront of this research. All this is under threat from a tiny minority of animal rights extremists. The government is stepping up its efforts to stamp out their often violent and illegal conduct.?

It is totally false as your ?animal lover? states that the UK campaign is dealing ?in particular with animals caught from the wild?. The UK government only allows purpose- bred monkeys to be imported into the UK. On that score it is important to point out that the UK Government also breeds monkeys on a large scale at Porton Downs in England to supply animals to the UK National Institute of Health and its work on aids and polio vaccines. Mauritius is only one of a large number of countries that breeds monkeys for biomedical research. The list also includes: the USA, UK, France, Russia, Israel, Japan, Philippines, China, Vietnam, Barbados, St Kitts, and a number of other countries All monkey imports are closely monitored by the UK Home Office and it is complete fiction to say that ?many animals die en route?. In 20 years of Mauritian monkey exports to the UK, there have been no deaths in shipping.

Animal welfare is of the utmost concern in Mauritius, which has established an international reputation for being the ?gold standard? in monkey breeding. Furthermore the report into monkey breeding in Mauritius commissioned by the UK RSPCA in 1994 concluded: ? As long as monkeys continue to be exported for use in research, the export of monkeys from Mauritius involves less suffering overall than from elsewhere. Grudging praise but praise none the less.

We are also animal lovers! In Mauritius the monkey breeding industry as a whole funds conservation of native animals and their habitat. Monkeys are so vital to the advancement of medical research that the only issue in this campaign is whether monkeys continue to be bred in the tropical sunshine of their country of origin or are ultimately only bred indoors in Europe and America.

<B> People and animal lover</B>