Peter Tatchell

About the author: Peter Tatchell is a leading activist with the Gay Liberation Front, an organization formed to expose and fight discrimination against homosexuals. He is also one of the founders of Outrage!, a London-based organization of homosexual activists. He has published several books and articles.

In the 1990s, the testing of AIDS drugs on animals yielded false results that needlessly held up the distribution of life-saving protease inhibitors. To rely on animal testing as a means of approving the safety of AIDS drugs is ridiculous because animals and humans have different physiologies. AIDS is a uniquely human disease; money that is spent on animal research in the name of fighting the disease is being filtered away from research that may actually find a cure.

The development of life-saving protease inhibitors was delayed for...