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Animal testing of beauty products
Name: Wayers
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
I consider animal testing to be cruel and unnecessary in most cases. I do
not disapprove entirely with the testing of drugs and beneficial technology
on animals; but I completely have a problem with testing unimportant
items, such as make up, hair spray, and other beauty products on innocent
lives. Are there any other methods of testing companies can use that
wouldn't involve the harming of animals?
Wayers
Replies:
Experience, theoretical models and testing on cell cultures can offer
guidelines for a good guess as to what will happen when you throw some new
chemical into a human body, but there are examples of where even very
careful guesses have proved in practice to be terribly wrong (Thalidomide
and DES come to mind). Given the very high level of safety that people
demand from substances that go in or on their bodies, the only testing
method that is considered reliable enough at present for new chemicals is
to try the stuff out on some living creature that can tell you if it hurts
or is sick. And even then you must be sure the creature is as similar as
possible, at least in the part of the body you are worried about, to human
beings. (This is itself a real challenge, and progress in treating disease
is often hampered by the lack of a suitable animal model.) Thus ultimately
comes the difficult ethical choice you are concerned with: namely, who or
what gets to be the guinea pig?
In terms of beauty products, there are enough people who feel as you do
that there are a number of product lines which are guaranteed to be made
without animal testing (they use ingredients that have been tested earlier
on animals and are now recognized as safe). You can find them in natural
foods and ecologically-conscious stores.
Christopher Grayce
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Update: June 2012
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