In his role as Chancellor of Oxford University, Chris Patten extols the virtues of animal testing as justification for the new research centre under construction at the university but currently stalled by animal rights protestors.

Patten enthuses that the lives of those who suffer from Alzheimer's disease will improve as a result of the experimentation to be carried out on primates in this laboratory.

This made the article "Caring for my mum drove me to the limit" (The Argus, December 3), which describes Marion Joyce Langton caring for her mother who had Alzheimer's disease, even more poignant.

My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier this year and her NHS consultant advised me to put her on cholinesterase inhibitors.

I found official literature about these drugs frequently included words such as "might", "could" and "should".

This did not instil confidence in me. I also discovered a long list of possible side-effects associated with them - drugs, remember, that have come out of the sort of research Patten is promoting and have been fully tested on animals.

Dr Ray Greek, author of Spurious Science, concludes unequivocally there is no form of Alzheimer's in animals.

The Humane Research Trust believes drugs designed to treat human brains should not be tested on animals because they are so different in terms of biochemistry, physiology and anatomy.

If either of these assertions is true, Patten's words are misinforming and dangerous.

Like Marion, I have become my mother's official carer.

For the sake of future sufferers and the health of the nation, let us have an honest and open debate into appropriate scientific research.

The problems which could occur after giving her these so-called palliative treatments would be as bad as the dementia itself. A quality of life for mum at this juncture seems the most sensible option.

-David Hammond, Hassocks