It was reported that seeing protesters wearing costumes spattered with fake blood would cause distress to employees of Harlan Laboratories UK (Mercury, August 4).

What about the distress of the animals bred in that establishment? Their fate is to be used as commodities for vivisection.

Numerous researchers have said that animals can be so unpredictably different from humans in their physiological/mental response to drugs, chemicals, viruses, diet etc that it is scientifically impossible to reliably apply animal-experimental findings to human beings.

The bodies and minds of defenceless animals are damaged unnecessarily – that's distressing!

Elizabeth Allison, Aylestone.