"MADAM, I NEED TO KISS YOUR BABY!"

"Would baby like a balloon, Madam? ...We've got a whole shadow cabinet full!"

It was interesting to read in the Reporter that the local MP for Denton & Reddish, Andrew Gwynne, has now become a ‘citizen scientist’ to help the charity Cancer Research UK, fight cancer.

 

Now, Cancer Research UK is a laudable organisation and is one of the country’s leading research organisations and one that has already achieved multiple milestones in the fight against this terrible disease.

But on reading the article in which the prominent MP tells us, “Research is cancers number one enemy, so I urge everyone to get involved and help Cancer Research UK’s doctors and scientists to keep making huge advances in the battle against all cancers.” makes one wonder if the Labour MP has now made another U-turn on a principled stance he took previously.

Thanks to decades of dedicated research, survival from cancer has doubled in the last 40 years, but this progress simply wouldn’t have been possible without animal research.

Now, considering that Cancer Research UK, says that “…research using animals is an unavoidable part of our efforts to beat cancer.” One wonders how this practice conforms and suddenly becomes acceptable with Mr Gwynne’s well publicised principles and his previous call for the banning of all research which involves animal testing. 

One wonders which hymn sheet he will be singing from when the next piece of successful clinical research is revealed exposing the fact, that fundamental to this particular breakthrough, it was at some stage, entirely due to experiments being carried out on animals.

Admittedly, it is accepted that although a great deal of cancer research is carried out without using animals. In certain areas, animal research remains essential if researchers are to understand, prevent and cure cancer.

So it would be interesting to know whether Mr Gwynne has accepted that animal experimentation has now somehow become acceptable, or alternatively, whether he still advocates banning that part of the cancer research program that involves biomedical tests on animals, before they are tested on humans.

Personally, I suspect that like many politicians, my 'honourable friend’ has discovered that in order to spin his way up the political greasy pole, he has to kiss a great many babies, whilst he’s actually stealing their lollipops!