Baek Kim, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Rochester, told City Newspaper, "We still have to do the animal studies" to determine if miltefosine can help people who are HIV-positive ("Fighting HIV/AIDS Where it Lives," February 20).

For many reasons, use of animals for AIDS research should be stopped.

Young primates, abducted from their natural habitats, often witness the slaying of their mother before being crammed into cages or crates. During transport, the animals are forced to endure temperature extremes, deafening noise, and lack of ventilation. At research laboratories, primates, dogs, cats, and other animals are subject to solitary confinement, lack of exercise, mutilation and/or injections of disease or toxic chemicals.

Even small dissimilarities between species, on the cellular level, result in major differences in the cause and treatment of a disease. Albert Sabin, one of the creators of the polio vaccine, maintained that "what has been demonstrated up to now concerning AIDS research with animals is that it does not have any relevance to humans." According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, "Chimpanzees and other animals have contributed nothing to progress in AIDS research that could not have been gained in other ways."

Using irrelevant models has hindered progress. The pharmaceutical establishment tested protease inhibitors on dogs and rats. The drugs shut off the flow of bile to the liver, causing painful deaths for the animals.

The experimenters concluded it would be unethical to test protease inhibitors on humans. Consequently, from1989 until 1993, the protease inhibitor development program was dropped.

But thanks largely to research developed by computer models and studies of human volunteers, we now rely on protease inhibitors to increase life expectancy for many people with AIDS.

The millions of dollars our government spends annually for animal use in AIDS research funnels scarce research funds away from more humane and reliable approaches. As Steve Simmons, a PETA spokesperson who died of AIDS 11 years ago, wrote shortly before his death: "Living with AIDS has only strengthened my conviction that torturing animals has nothing to do with curing this disease."

JOEL FREEDMAN, CANANDAIGUA

Freedman chairs the public-education committee of Animal Rights Advocates of Upstate New York.