The next time you reach for your shampoo, remember this
- it may have been
cruelly tested on innocent animals. Prominent personal care and
household
product manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble and Gillette, among many
others, have been pouring shampoos, toilet cleaners, cosmetics, and
virtually
every other personal care and household substance into the eyes, into
the mouths,
and onto the raw, scraped skins of millions of rabbits, guinea pigs,
rats, mice,
cats, dogs, other animals for years.
No law requires that cosmetics and household products be
tested on animals.
Hundreds of companies produce cosmetics, personal care and household
products
that are not tested on animals. Under pressure from caring consumers,
many
major corporations, such as Revlon, Inc. and Amway Corporation, have
modernized
their operations and stopped animal tests.
Other major producers, however, have made no real effort
to move away from
animal testing. Some have even put up smoke screens to woo the public
into
thinking they care about animals, when in fact their compassionate
claims appear
to be more public relations than anything else. Procter & Gamble
Corporation,
though claiming to be an industry leader in advancing alternatives to
animal tests,
not only continues to unnecessarily use animal testing in product tests,
but has
considered forming a coalition with a $17.5 million budget to defend
animal testing
to the public and to legislators. An internal memorandum from Procter &
Gamble,
made public by the Doris Day Animal League, revealed that the three-year
plan
included an educational brochure and film, a National Speaker's Bureau,
a
legislative defense package, a plan for coalition building with
like-minded groups,
media advertising, and teaching materials supporting the continuance of
animal
tests designed for students from kindergarten through high school. The
$17.5
million budgeted to defend animal testing would have gone a long way if
applied
instead to switching over to nonanimal methods of testing.
What types of animal tests do cosmetic and household
product companies
perform? Two of the most popular are the Draize Eye Irritancy Test and
the LD50
(Lethal Dose) Test.
Draize Test
The Draize test, named after its inventor, involves
introducing substances into the
eyes of an animal to observe the degree of irritation caused by
substance. White
albino rabbits are the animal of choice because their eyes are very
sensitive and
because the structure of their tear ducts prevents tears from washing
away the
foreign substance.
Placed into stocks so that only their heads stick out
(like the old punishment
device of the Pilgrims), rabbits have anything from shampoo to oven
cleaner to
lipstick to lawn care products placed into their eyes with no pain
relief. Some
rabbits have reportedly broken their necks while struggling to free
themselves from
the painful procedure. The degree of irritation is then recorded over a
period of time
and the rabbit is eventually killed.
The Draize test is inhumane, painful, cumbersome, and
expensive. Is it at least
scientific? Not according to a study conducted at Carnegie-Mellon
University,
which revealed broad discrepancies in the lab reports for the same
substance.
Because the Draize test relies on the subjective judgement of the
observer, findings
for the same substance vary widely from one laboratory to the next,
resulting in
contradictory evaluations of the same substance. In addition to
questions about
the scientific validity of the test itself, there is also a question
about the difference
between a rabbit's eye and a human's eye. In a 1974 Ohio court case, a
judge
ruled that just because a shampoo irritated a rabbit's eye didn't mean
that the
information was meaningful in regard to a human eye. Says Stephen
Kaufman,
M.D.: "As an ophthalmologist in the New York University I am surprised
that the
Draize eye irritation test is done at all....I know of no case in which
an ophthal-
mologist found Draize data useful."
LD50 Test
Just as inhumane and pointless as the Draize test is the
Lethal Dose 50 (LD50)
test, which gets its name from its purpose of discovering how much of a
substance
it takes to kill 50% of the test group. As many as 200 animals may be
force-fed a
toxic substance for a single test, which may last from two weeks to
several months,
depending on the material being tested. This poisoning causes a great
deal of
suffering; symptoms may include pain, convulsions, weakness and
vomiting.
Other tests are the Acute Dermal Toxicity Test and the
Acute Inhalation Test. The
Acute Dermal Toxicity Test involves scraping the skin until raw,
smearing a
substance on the raw skin, covering the "treated" area with a bandage to
protect
the experiment, and then removing the bandage a few hours later to
observe the
degree of irritancy. The Acute Inhalation Test consists of repeatedly
exposing test
animals to spray products.
Is the LD50 test scientifically valid? Many medical
doctors don't think so. As with
the Draize test, they point to the difficulty in extrapolating data from
animals to
humans and to the scientific invalidity of the experiments themselves.
Lynda
Dickinson, author of the book 'Victims of Vanity,' contends that some
deaths are
caused not by the poisonous nature of the tested substance, but from the
sheer
volumes of the doses administered, which result in blocked internal
organs and
subsequent death. Says one medical doctor, Donald Doll:
"As a practicing physician who is board certified in
internal medicine and oncology,
I can find NO evidence that the Draize test, LD50 test, or any other
tests using
animals to support the "safety" of chemicals and cosmetics have any
relevance to
the human species. Such tests are outdated, insensitive, cruel, and
provide no
useful data for humans. I strongly support legislation that prohibits
the use of such
animal tests by industry...."
Humane alternatives to the animal tests for both eye and
skin irritancy are already
in use by many companies. However, the cosmetics industry, which has
extensive
resources to fund any needed research into alternatives, has invested
only a token
amount toward nonanimal testing. Proposals for nonanimal methods are
going
unfunded as a result of this lack of interest by the industry.
Additionally, money is
being spent on research methods that simply reduce, rather than
eliminate, the
use of animals.
Why do companies such as Procter & Gamble continue with
outmoded, expensive
animal tests? It's anyone's guess. It may be that companies are waiting
for the
federal government to officially endorse an alternative to animal tests,
so that
companies can use this endorsement as a defense in case of consumer
lawsuits
for product-related injury or harm. The most influential factor may
simply be a
conservatism that resists change. Whatever the reason, exposing animals
to
suffering and death to test yet another new deodorant or hairspray is
unjustifiable
on any count.
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