Dear Editor,

He may have portrayed a villain often onscreen, but film legend Christopher Lee was a hero to animals in real life. The star of The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars movies lent his distinctive voice to a PETA radio ad blasting heart experiments on animals. "When you donate money to the American Heart Association (AHA), you help fund cruel, pointless experiments on animals," he told listeners.

The experiments Lee was referring to sound like they came straight out of his horror movie scripts, and include injecting glass particles into dogs' hearts, inducing heart attacks in dogs multiple times a day every day for several weeks, and inflicting brain damage on newborn piglets by pounding on metal shafts inserted into their skulls.

While some progress has been made-PETA has persuaded all hospitals and universities offering AHA training courses to use human simulators instead of live cats and ferrets-the AHA is still funding experiments on animals, despite the fact that more sophisticated and human-specific research methods are available and have yielded lifesaving results.

As Christopher Lee said, "Your contribution should help end suffering-not cause it. Please don't support any charity that kills."

Sincerely,

Alisa Mullins

The PETA Foundation

Norfolk, Va.