We refer to the letter Peta out to stop medical advancement .

No matter what your position is on the ethics of subjecting animals to painful, invasive experiments, surely everyone can agree that these animals at least deserve a modicum of legal protection to ensure that they are treated as humanely as possible.

But in Malaysia, where Indian company Vivo Biotech plans to build an animal experimentation laboratory, no laws whatsoever exist to protect animals in laboratories.

Vivo Biotech plans to subject monkeys, beagles and other animals to painful, deadly tests at its new facility – tests that would have to undergo scrutiny by an Institutional Animal Ethics Committee in India.

Because Malaysia provides no government oversight, the experiments could be conducted without adhering to even the minimal animal welfare standards that are required in India, making Vivo Bio Tech's plans looks suspiciously like an attempt to avoid compliance with Indian standards.

God created animals to run, jump, climb trees, and do all the things that they do naturally. Surely, if He had intended them for nothing else but being poisoned, cut up, and confined for life to a barren cage, as Malacca Chief Minister Mohamad Ali Rustam implies, God would not have made them with the capacity to suffer so terribly.

But because they do have the capacity to suffer, we have a responsibility - one might argue to God Himself - to treat His creatures as humanely as we can. By farming out its experiments to a country with no laws protecting animals in laboratories, Vivo Biotech is irresponsible at best and immoral at worst.

The writer is Vivisection Campaign Coordinator, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), India .