Medical science is a boon to all humanity

• YOUR correspondent Terrence MacManus, in just one short letter, manages to ignore, falsify, and discard the whole of human progress to date (Letters, December 17).
Here are my basic comments on his ill-informed attack on medical science, in response to your article about the research centre to be built in King’s Cross.
First, there are millions of us alive today as a sole result of drugs developed using animal testing.
Second, while eating less red meat might help us live healthier and longer, mankind has been carnivorous as far back as our origins, and beyond that in the form of pre-human primates.
Third, cow’s milk has also been consumed since the dawn of man and cow. It can be bad for some people, but for the vast majority of people, it is a source of useful nutrients.
Perhaps his most dangerous and stupid comment is the recommendation to “never accept any more vaccinations”.
Widespread vaccination has eradicated smallpox which, as recently as 1967, killed more than two million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation.
Medical science is a human activity and is not perfect, but it is vastly better than any of the alternatives.
The research centre to be built near King’s Cross will help keep British scientists at the forefront of medical science for generations to come.
DAVID REED
Eton Avenue, NW3