ARLAN WEB SITE REVIEW (March 2003)

Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine
http://www.dlrm.org

By Stephen Gallaugher

This website is run by an organisation called Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine (“DLRM”). DLRM's sole objective, and the focus of the website, is the immediate and unconditional abolition of all animal experiments, on medical and scientific grounds.

The site contains banners to DLRM’s latest news, campaigns and aims, and also describes how to join their group. Members receive free newsletters which can be accessed on this site, as can references to other books, audio and video footage. Whilst visiting the site I also took the opportunity to sign DLRM’s online petition for a Judicial Inquiry into the questionable scientific validity of animal experiments in medical research.

An appealing part of the website for those interested in the area of animal testing, or just curious as to the issues that it raises, is the link where Dr André Menache answers users most frequently asked questions . These include answers to questions such as what's wrong with using chimpanzees in the study of human disease? Or mice? If animal models are useless, what else is there? I discovered that that chimps and humans share 98.4% of their DNA. Still, I also found out that there are significant differences in the immune system of chimps and humans, including that chimps are resistant to HIV, Hepatitis B and a common form of malaria. For further facts and information regarding the use of animals in experiments this site is a must.