Charities

[Hmonty]

I was a bit bored at work yesterday (hence the number of postings I made!) and so was surfing a bit. Came across something that might be of interest. Have you heard of the web site www.free2give.co.uk? It is sponsored by some top, online retail companies ie Amazon, WHSmith, Wtaerstones etc. Basically if you buy through them via this site they will donate a percentage of your purchase to the charity you select. The percentage can be upto 10% I believe. It costs you nothing and you go to the standard retailers site so you're not charged more than usual for the priviledge. The charities that benefit are broken down into different sections. I looked at the children section and there are a fair few ie NSPCC, Tommy campaign, BLISS etc.

But thalidomide wasn't tested on pregnant animals which was why it wasn't licensed for use in pregnancy in the US. It causes birth defects in animals.
I do like animals and hate wanton cruelty, but if top cancer specialists think it is necessary in some cases, I really feel they probably know more than I do.
I think a lot of animal rights propaganda is dangerous nonsense. With PETA top of my list.

totally agree about the PETA thing.

Cancer Research and the Heart Foundation test new drugs on animals to see what reaction they have, if there are any side-effects and how effective they are. Some drugs have to be tested on live animals in this way, how else are you to determine whether or not they would work? Or what effect they would have on a patient? Short of testing on actual volunteers (which they also strive to do with cancer) I fail to see how else they can test these drugs. If I had cancer I'm sure I wouldn't be asking if a potentially life-saving drug had been tested on a monkey first.