Losers in the Rat Race

Thank you for your informative, albeit distasteful (in subject matter) article, “Research Rodent Breeders Are Winning the Rat Race” (by Dave Larsen, Oct. 31).

Tragically for the wretched, feeling creatures about whom he writes, breeding animals as research tools is indeed a multimillion-dollar industry. So was slavery and child-labor. These rodents endure poisoning, mutilation, electrocution, freezing, burning and such without the benefit of anesthetic or any protection whatsoever under the law, including the Animal Welfare Act.

An attempt to better their fate (45 million mice per year, 15 million rats per year), the Humane Product Testing Act (H.R. 1877) languishes and dies as do they. So many of these tests are invalid, unreliable, expensive and duplicative, besides being cruel and barbaric. But where money can be made at the expense of exploiting those persons and animals unable to fend for themselves, by people indifferent to the pain and suffering they cause, such will always be the case. Such also demeans all who participate or ignore its reality.

ELAINE F. LIVESEY-FASSEL

Los Angeles