Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Animal Testing

While I love our fluffy (and scaley for that matter, we have a pet frog) friends, I'm not one of those people that only buys and uses products based on whether or not they test on animals. I was recently reminded of this "hot topic" on twitter, when the Pixiwoo sisters had a situation with L'Oreal.

Here's my thoughts on it. All new ingredients require testing (though not "animal testing" as such) per the FDA. However, PETA wasn't founded till 1980 and the FDA was found in 1930 and lipstick has existed for quite a while. You do the math.

While the FDA doesn't promote animal testing for cosmetic items, they do in a somewhat round about way say that it may become necessary after researching other options to "assure the safety of a product or ingredient".

So what does this mean?

Well, it means that all "new" ingredients need to be tested to assure safety. Most ingredients have already been testing at one point or another so they don't need to be tested again. Many of these ingredients were tested by the use of animal testing. Take Titanium Dioxide for example. How many "natural" "animal friendly" or "vegan" products do you know that use this ingredient? Sorry, that's mostly a rhetorical question.

What I would hope, is that companies choose to use these old findings and not test their own products using animals unless they are under some other legal obligation to do so. And that they should use any other means necessary unless it were necessary for safety per FDA regulations. It would make more business sense to not spend the money to test!

What are your thoughts? While I encourage intelligent debates, please remain civil!

1 comment:

Nancy said...

I support animal testing as long as it's as humane and ethical as possible, whether it's for vascular disease, cancer, or even makeup. For the most part, testing makeup means that they're testing certain chemicals in the makeup (yes, chemicals, waxes, and some fish here and there). It's because of (often) animal testing that we find dangerous ingredients like DBP and toluene linked to cancer in fingernail polishes or lead in lipstick. This helps the cosmetic industry and the consumer to avoid these chemicals, not in just cosmetics, but other everyday items. As you can see, I don't see this as a problem. I find that the cosmetic industry as a whole needs to be re-regulated. If the government upped the laws and the cosmetic companies stopped putting nasty chemicals in makeup and made safe makeup, it wouldn't be a problem.

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