Health

European Union Will Phase Out Animal Testing For Cosmetics

by Barbara McPherson | March 13, 2009 at 09:41 am

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The European Union is phasing out the testing on animals for beauty products. Many new chemicals and ingredients for beauty products must be tested before they are marketed to humans. In order to test for skin irritation or unforseen reactions, animals are often used. Often this causes great pain to the laboratory animals.

An amendment to the European Union's Cosmetics Directive today phases out the use of animals in testing for any acute toxic effects of beauty products and toiletries — effects such as eye and skin irritation that might be seen shortly after exposure. Nature News finds out what this entails.

One of the most notorious tests is the Draze test used on rabbits' eyes. The chemical to be tested is placed in the rabbit's eye.

The “gold standard” eye irritation test is the Rabbit Eye test (Draze’s Test), in which the materials are introduced into the rabbit eye, and the eye is observed for different consequences of irritation (redness, clouding of the cornea). Unfortunately, the rabbits cannot tell us how painful the test is and when the discomfort changes into stinging and then into pain. This type of animal testing easily becomes inhumane.

The cosmetic industry is multi-billion dollar. With the European Union phasing out this cruel aspect of beauty, it may be the rest of the world will follow suit.

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Rachel Nixon

at 10:19 on March 13th, 2009

Thanks Barbara, this is a pleasing development.

boopers rescued cats

at 10:38 on March 13th, 2009

ALL TESTING ON ANIMALS SHOULD BE BANNED THEY ARE LIVING CREATURES THAT FEEL PAIN HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE VIDEOS OF ANIMAL TESTING.

Amy Judd

at 11:04 on March 13th, 2009

This is really good news. Animal testing used to be such a hot issue but has since gone off the radar a bit - it's good to see the EU is at least taking it a bit more seriously.