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Controversy on animal testing with cosmetics
Unfairness to animals and cosmetic testing
Controversy on animal testing with cosmetics
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Cosmetic Testing on Animals
Every year, millions of animals suffer and die in painful tests to determine the safety of cosmetics. Substances such as eye shadow and soap are tested on rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, dogs, and other animals, despite the fact that the test results don’t help prevent or treat human illness or injury.
Cosmetics are not required to be tested on animals and since non-animal alternatives exist, it’s hard to understand why some companies still continue to conduct these tests. Cosmetic companies kill millions of animals every year to try to make a profit.
According to the companies that perform these tests, they are done to establish the safety of a product and the ingredients. However, the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which regulates cosmetic products, does not require animal testing. Some of the tests used on animals are eye irritancy tests, acute toxicity tests, and skin irritancy tests.
In eye irritancy tests, a liquid, flake, granule, or powdered substance is dropped into the eyes of a group of albino rabbits. The animals are often immobilized in stocks from which only their heads protrude. They usually receive no anesthesia during the tests.
After placing the substance into the rabbits eyes, lab technicians record the damage to the eye tissue at specific intervals over an average period of 72 hours. The tests sometimes last seven to eighteen days. Reactions to the substances include swollen eyelids, ulceration, bleeding...
They are forcibly given toxic substances and pain relief is never an option. Killing the animals at the end of the testing is common practice, since the animals are no longer useful. In one example, rabbits acted as test subjects to test the eye irritation of certain shampoos. The bunnies were restrained, their eyelids forced open with clips for days and the shampoos were applied. Some of the test subjects experienced redness, ulcers, and bleeding and even blindness.
They determine the toxic levels for mice, dogs, rabbits, cats and chimpanzees, but not for young or old men and women. Some animals die in the test as a result of the volume of material, not the toxicity of the material. Most important, is the number of animals that suffer unnecessarily: why pour drain cleaner down the throats of animals, when humans would never do such a thing? Eye irritancy tests are outdated. Companies use the Draize Test to determine the irritancy of household products and cosmetics, including laundry soap, toilet cleaner, perfumes and shampoos.
Animal testing has been used for developing and researching cures for medical conditions. For example, the polio vaccine, chemotherapy for cancer, insulin treatment for diabetes, organ transplants and blood transfusions are just some of the important advances that have come from research on animals (“Animal Testing”). Consuming animals for research benefits in developing various treatments and also benefits in discovery better methods for cures. According to the article “Animal Testing”, it says that the underlying rationale for the use of animal testing is that living organisms provide interactive, dynamic systems that scientists can observe and manipulate in order to understand normal and pathological functioning as well as the effectiveness of medical interventions. It relies on the physiological and anatomical similarities between humans and other animals (MacClellan, Joel). Meaning that animals have the same body components and features as humans and is the best thing to research on to better understand the human development. Even though several argue that animal testing is harming the animals, one has to think back to all the benefits that has come from it. There may be a little remorse for endangering animal lives, but realizing how far medicine has come makes it worth the while.
The ethics behind using animals for experiments and tests has been questioned and debated for years. Many people believe that animal experimentations can be crucial towards medical breakthroughs such as the cure for cancer, HIV/AIDS or asthma. Meanwhile others argue that animals that are used to test cosmetics such as make-up and perfumes are inhuman because is not going to help improve the human race. Animals suffer through multiple types of torture such as being forced to ingest poisonous chemicals, blinded, burned, stapled, and infected with disease viruses. Even though animal experimentation may be considered inhumane to many, animal experimentation is crucial to advancements in medical research and can lead to a better quality of life; on the other hand, animal experimentation should not be used to develop cosmetics because such experimentation is cruel and unnecessary.
These animals used for testing products commonly include mice, rats, rabbits, monkeys, hamsters, guinea pigs, dogs and cats. These animals are forced to test new products before they are sold to humans, and even though there are numerous valid substitutes for us to test products on, the law doesn’t require that we do. What’s even more horrifying is that no animal experiment is illegal, and therefore these ‘tests’ can be completely irrelevant to human health, and no matter how painful or cruel the test may be to animals it is completely legal. Some companies that test their products on animals include Almay, Johnson & Johnson, Clearasil, Axe, Lancôme (owned by L’Oréal), and Pantene (owned by Procter & Gamble).
One of the largest controversies involving the testing on animals is the harm that is inflicted on them. Proof lies in the many leaked photographs showing the horrific pain that has been forced onto beings that cannot speak for themselves. A test called Lethal Dose 50%, or LD50, is a test to assess cosmetics such as lipstick, nail polish, skin care products, and others. This can leave the rabbits, dogs, mice, or other unfortunate animals left crippled with severe untreated chemical burns. During the assessment of the product the animals are force...
One of the many painful tests administered to animals in laboratories is the Draize Test. This experiment, introduced forty-five years ago by FDA toxicologist John H. Draize, "is used to measure the harmfulness of chemicals found in household products and cosmetics by observing the damage they cause to the eyes and skin of animals" (Products, 1, 97). The brutal results of these series of tests (usually on rabbits) leave animals with mutilated, blind, or ulcerated eyes. At the end of these immoral tests, the animals are all killed to study their internal anatomy. Products, 97.
Approximately two to four million animals have been used in safety tests. Safety tests are conducted with a wide range of chemicals and products, including drugs, vaccines, cosmetics, household cleaners, and packing materials. This raises issues such as the ethics and humaneness of deliberately poisoning animals, thus harming them, for the sake of marketing a new cosmetic or household product.
Animal testing has long played a part in the science of testing, and it still plays a very important role in the medical world. Testing on animals in order to create a cure for AIDS is one thing, but testing on animals for human vanity is another. Animal testing is used to test the safety of a product. It has kept some very unsafe substances out of the cosmetic world. However, in this day in age, animal testing is not the only way to test the safety of a product. Animal testing in cosmetics has decreased over the years. However, it is still used by many companies in America. Animal testing is not only cruel, but it is also unnecessary in today’s advanced scientific world.
Simple household items such as lotions, shampoos and cosmetics aren’t very expensive and are within reach for the public, yet the public is not knowledgeable of the fact that the products that they use everyday are put through a series of tests which involve the use of harmless animals. Several large commercial companies do not make products for animals; they decide that using these harmless creatures for the testing of their products, could be cause to be harmful to animals still go forward with these types of procedures on an everyday basis. Although these animals are unable to defend themselves or signs of any form of consent for the near death procedures, these companies find this as a cheap solution for testing their products before placing them on the market. There are many other alternatives to testing animals such as embryonic stem cell research. Animal experimentation is wrong and it can be avoided but companies which are greedy for money chose not to.
Animal testing is an act of barbarism, the fact that animals are being bred to be a victim of crude experiments and then euthanized is cruel. An Eye Irritancy Test is a test in which albino rabbits have a substance entered into their eyes that are held open with clips for seven to eighteen days. The rabbits are confined in stocks with only their heads protruding while experimenters record the damage of the eye tissue which can vary to being swollen eyelids, inflamed irises, ulceration, bleeding, massive deterioration, and blindness. Many rabbits break their necks as they struggle to escape from the pain. Another savage test is an Acute Toxicity Test, also known as lethal doses, or poisoning tests. This test determines the amount of a substance that will kill a percentage of a group of test animals. Substances are forced into the animal’s body by tubes to the stomach, cuts to the throat, introduced to the eyes, mixed into food or inhaled through a gas mask. Reactions to this test can include convulsions, heavy breathing, diarrhea, constipation, emaciation, contortion, skin eruptions, and bleeding. The testing period continues until at least half of the animals die, approximately two to four weeks. Keep in mind, anesthesia is absent during these procedures.
It still comes as a surprise to me that with all the technology in today’s society, we are still relying on animals for cosmetic research. Some people think that it is acceptable and even justified to test on mere animals rather than risk hurting people. So, for these kinds of people, animal testing makes perfect sense. However, in my opinion, animals are living creatures and have the right to live out their lives as nature intended rather than simply surviving in cages while being poked and prodded with whatever scientists fancy. I think it is depressing and sort of grotesque that I am using products that have been tested on animals that are even commonly bred as our pets. So, I began my research to find out what companies still test on animals, why they do so, and what other alternatives they could use in place of animal testing.
Animal testing was successful. Now, the non-invasive technique has proven itself during its first human tests.
Animal testing has become extremely costly. Animal testing results are not quick, especially for cosmetics. When testing a product it needs to be continually applied to detect if it’s going to irritate the skin or eyes. This can take days or weeks. During this time you have to keep the animals alive long enough to see the result. Therefore also having to supply food and water costing even more $$$. For example the eye irritant test involving rabbits to see how a product or chemical will react on human eyes cost around 1,800$ while the alternative in vitro method only cost 1,400$. Not only is the alternative more accurate but its much more cost effective and over time those 400$ will add up. Another common example is the skin sensation test, which is where a product is placed on a shaved animals skin to see how it reacts. The cost for the animal test is 6,000$ and the alternative is only 3,000$. That is a lot of money that could be used to make the product better or for the company to keep.
A second practice involves taking a chemical that is used to produce a specific kind of make-up and rubbing it into the skin of an animal after its fur has been shaved. Skin irritation tests cause the chemical to seep into the body of the animal, not just the skin. This chemical process is also done on the eyes. The scientists will drip a certain amount of a chemical into the eyes of an animal causing excruciating pain. The animals are not given pain relief medication of any kind after the procedure to see how it affects them and if the effects are