I AM writing in response to the headline “New call to end animal testing” (The Argus, December 4) about activists demanding the University of Brighton stop using vivisection.

They have a hard fight on their hands.

The scientific and business community have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of animal-model research.

One of the most basic reasons animal research continues virtually unabated is that people are resistant to change. Ego plays a significant role too.

Scientists who experiment on animals and have their results published in the scientific literature have their professional reputation enhanced.

It is self-protection at its most basic level.

The public should know that there are several individuals and groups in the scientific community who, despite specific knowledge of the failure of animal models and their role in harming human patients, maintain a financial interest in perpetuating the practice.

These groups include scientists, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare providers, manufacturers of animal related laboratory equipment and scientific journals.

They believe that they are entitled to police themselves, that is, they wish for nothing less than total control over the allocation of public funds spent on biomedical research.

Medical students are taught by people whose livelihoods depend on using animals and that all the breakthroughs in medicine came from animal studies.

Doctors who work directly with patients are often too busy to question the practice of using animal models.

By educating people about the pseudoscience of animal-model research, as well as how and why it is perpetuated, a groundswell of public pressure on lawmakers can cause re-examination of the corrupt and wasteful system through which healthcare research funds are distributed.

When more people begin to understand that human lives are lost every day because of scientists and corporate profiteers protecting their own interests, the seeds of change will be sown.

David Hammond North Court Hassocks