“There is no logical basis for the way in which we treat animals in research; in fact, we would not tolerate such treatment if the animals were Homo sapiens; therefore we cannot tolerate such treatment for other sentient creatures that, like us, are able to experience and suffer pain.”
- Bernard Rollin, author of "Animal Research: A Moral Science"
Make Animal Testing Illegal!
An animal’s anatomy does not directly mimic the anatomy of a human; therefore results obtained from animal tests are not fully reliable. The rabbit eye does not mimic the human eye but, despite this fact, humans still put the animals through eye irritancy tests to obtain results that are only 50 percent accurate. Similarly in 2007, there was a large shift away from animal testing that stemmed from statistics that showed as much as 25 percent of the drugs tested on animals failed to result in side effects that later proved serious enough to prevent the drugs from being marketed.
There are numerous scientific advancements in research that allow products to be tested without the use of animals in the laboratory. Scientists have engineered tissue samples from donated human cells and use these recreated tissues to replace mice, cats, dogs, etc. The only reason this has not adapted further is because companies do not want to make the very expensive investment of supporting these new, scientific advancements. For example, analysts estimate that businesses spent $716 million in 2006 on these alternative-testing techniques, and L’Oreal alone spent more than $800 million by purchasing two companies that make alternative tests.
Cosmetic animal testing is outdated, unethical and, because of this, it should be illegal. The practice of animal testing kills millions of animals every year along with causing them pain and leaving them extremely impaired. In 2009 the European Union passed legislation that banned animal testing of finished cosmetics products, the testing of cosmetics ingredients on animals, and the import, selling and marketing of cosmetic products that have been animal tested outside the European Union. No law like this one exists in the United States. The closest is the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2011, which encourages the development of alternatives to animal testing, but it has yet to be adopted. Only Congress can create a law that bans animal testing because companies would move from state to state to avoid legal penalties. Because of this, there is no obligation for cosmetic manufacturers to refrain from inflicting excessive harm upon animals. In fact, around 20 million animals are used in labs per year and most of them are sacrificed during the experiment or left extremely impaired. For example, the LD50 test, a toxicity tests that stands for “lethal dose in 50 percent,” kills half of the animals in the test group after they have experienced diarrhea, organ rupture or internal bleeding.
Lush Cosmetics' Fight Animal
Testing Campaign
In 2012 Lush Cosmetics put 24-year-old performance artist, Jacqueline Traide, in their London Regent Street storefront window. For ten hours Jacqueline represented an animal test subject for the cosmetics industry and tests were preformed on her in front of consumers walking down Regent Street. If you click on the video to the left you can see the performance for yourself and view the horrifying, recreated abuse that animals get put through in laboratories. Some of the tests included Jacqueline being force fed substances, receiving injections by needle, and getting her hair burned off from different products. During the performance Lush workers stood outside and received hundreds of signatures from the audience on a petition to finally stop animal testing. After, the ten hours ended with the researchers putting Jacqueline into a garbage bag and carrying her out to the trash that was on the side of the street. She then commented, "I hope it will plant the seed of a new awareness in people to really start thinking about what they go out and buy and what goes into producing it."
PETA against animal testing ad
Lush Cosmetic's Fight Animal Testing