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		Letter to the Editor East Midlands local newspapers - - Monday, 30th October 2006 Dear Sir, I should like to thank the 3898 East Midlanders who signed up to the Lush Cosmetics campaign against animal testing. I have their postcards on my desk, and I am 100% behind their campaign, and I have worked with a number of animal charities, like the Kennel Club, to try to reduce animal testing. The EU's new chemicals directive REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of CHemicals) originally threatened a holocaust of small animals with up to 60 million under threat. Conservative MEPs have campaigned to improve a very bad proposal, and to reduce the level of animal testing to an absolute minimum. The REACH directive is like an iceberg. The bit you see is very attractive. It's a headline saying "Cleaner Environment", and we all want that. But the much larger bit you don't see is downright dangerous. Not only will it mean huge amounts of unnecessary testing on animals. It will also impose heavy-handed regulation on businesses. It will destroy jobs, cause business closures, and drive industry offshore. It would have been possible to achieve the environmental benefits much more quickly and effectively, without the damage to industry, or the threat to animals. Right now it looks as though REACH will still mean unnecessary testing on several million animals. That is a disgrace, and we will keep fighting it. Roger Helmer East Midlands Conservative MEP