To the editor:

I come from a generation who, lacking information technology, had to read books, newspapers, and do research on a subject in a library. Although I still enjoy a quiet place with a book, or the morning newspaper I do, more and more, rely on the internet for information and on social media to share news.

So I ask, why, in spite of information abundantly available on the internet, do people remain ignorant about subjects that require critical thinking. Indeed, if the information is troubling, many willfully turn away to cocoon themselves in blissful ignorance. I would sleep so much better were I able to do the same.

Today (with apologies to the gentle but ill-used milk cow), I write to kick the sacred cow which is medical experimentation on animals in laboratories. It is a huge cruel industry which has failed to produce cures of major human diseases. How huge? An estimate 115 to 127 million animals are sacrificed to this sacred cow each year. Mice and rats are the predominant lab animals, but there are also primates, beagles (12,500 beagles a year in one Canadian laboratory alone), and at Texas A&M University golden retrievers have suffered disgusting experimentation for 30 years without producing a cure for humans. Nevertheless, that study continues.

I hesitate to write anything unkind about the learned researchers who lead animal vivisection and other lethal experiments. I will only say that I have no respect for them. They are not my sacred cow. On a positive note, younger, more enlightened medical men and women, educated in modern technology, have turned away from using animal models to non-animal alternatives with successful results.

Anyone wishing to pick up educational literature, with lists of medical successes resulting from non-medical research, is invited to participate in a memorial walk to be held in Kelowna on Monday, April 24, at 11:30 a.m., starting at the Sails monument. See Facebook page World Day for Animals in Laboratories for more details.

Helen Schiele, Kelowna