The Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME) are to be congratulated for publishing four different views of the report of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which was published last year.

We guess you wouldn’t expect us to agree with the comments from David Thomas, who is legal consultant to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). But some of the comments are bizarre by any standard. Mr Thomas expresses surprise that the working party “does not seem to regard laboratory animals themselves as stakeholders”. Just how this might work in practice is not described. Presumably the animals would elect a mouse as their representative. Or would a fish have more time to devote to meetings?

David Thomas starts his essay by pointing out that it is difficult to have “proof” of the correctness of an ethical position. But he has no trouble in putting forward his own views as the right ones. Thomas simply dismisses the arguments of those who defend animal research by saying they are inconsistent “at the heart”. He makes it clear that he agrees only with the abolitionist perspective. We wonder why he bothers to say the NCOB report is a “valuable contribution” to the debate, when the only parts he values are those which reflect his own views.