Letter: This vegan no wimp

Sir: Further to Stanley Tyrer's letter (10 December), the argument that the slave trade acquired a pseudo-justification by producing profits for some has no conceivable parallel in the animal rights controversy. Slave labour could be replaced by other human labour, but there is no substitute for a living organism to give us the production of mono-clonal or other antibodies, on which all future therapeutics depends.

Dr F HILLMAN FRCPI FRCPath

Appley Bridge, Lancashire