IS HARMING ANIMALS REALLY JUSTIFIED IN THE NAME OF BEAUTY?
By Alexandra Davis
You can get away with murder, all in the name of animal testing. Poisoning, shocking, burning and killing animals, are all in a day’s work for vivisectionists around the world. If these acts were committed outside the walls of a laboratory, you would be facing a lengthy jail sentence. But that new foundation of yours makes harming innocent animals worth it, right?
The ethics behind animal testing have remained a contentious issue for decades. For many years, the question focused solely on whether it was moral to harm an animal if it meant saving a human life in the future. Many agreed, and advances in medical research as a result of animal testing justified this. However many industries still use animal testing, and the cosmetics industry causes more controversy than most.
The horrific images of laboratory rabbits and mice with red, crusty eyes and flaking fur make up just a handful of disturbing images engrained into our minds. According to a recent study by the Humane Society of America, animals were given lethal doses of chemicals to test the threshold of how much the chemical would hurt a human if put into their cosmetic products. These tests were often administered without anaesthesia and the animals were killed afterwards, or humanely put down, as they like to call it.
The use of animals to test cosmetic products or ingredients within them is currently banned in the UK and European Union. Since March 2013, the EU banned the sale of cosmetics newly tested on animals, yet many products found on EU shelves are made by companies still involved in animal testing.
The likes of MAC, L'Oréal, and Estee Lauder continue to test their products on animals outside the EU to sell in other parts of the world, like China and America.
Animal rights organisations are campaigning to completely put an end to animal testing for cosmetics, and one campaigner is Dr Julia Baines, Science Policy Adviser for PETA UK. Dr Baines argues: “It’s inexcusable in these times that companies can smear mascara on the cornea of rabbits’ eyes or inject guinea pigs with lipstick ingredients in order to check for painful skin reactions, especially considering the wide availability of vastly superior non-animal tests.”
Baines describes how the cosmetics industry “witnessed significant progress” following the arrival of the EU testing and marketing ban however individual ingredients used in cosmetics may still be tested on animals in the EU under “the world’s largest chemical testing programme”, known as REACH Regulation. Whilst testing of cosmetic products is banned in the UK, under this law companies must provide information about health effects of almost every chemical in Europe, which creates an opportunity for companies to test chemical ingredients used in cosmetics on animals.
In the UK alone, 3.8 million animals suffered in laboratory experiments last year, which included animals tested for cosmetics. For the first time, experimenters had to report the pain and distress endured by the animals in terms of “mild”, “moderate” and “severe” whilst thousands never regained consciousness in experiments classed as “non recovery”.
Alistair Currie, policy adviser for PETA argues: “Animals feel pain and fear just as we do, and their overwhelming natural inclinations, like ours, are to be free and protect their own lives, not to be locked inside a laboratory cage, where they are subjected to abuse and suffering.”
It is estimated that 200,000 animals die from cosmetic testing, every year around the world. Currie states: “Everyone knows that cosmetics testing on animals is a bloody, indefensible business.” Medical research arguably saves human lives yet cosmetics research deals with vanity, not health. Is sacrificing the life of an animal in vigorous testing really a worthy cause, when it’s for a new lipstick?
As support grows for a worldwide ban on animal testing in cosmetics, there are still some who are in favour of the practise. Scientist and head of functional neurosurgery at Oxford University, Tipu Aziz, has openly advocated testing on animals. Aziz has used monkeys in his research into Parkinson’s disease, but he has since gone further by justifying their use to test cosmetics. The neurosurgeon argues: “People talk about cosmetics being the ultimate evil. But if it’s proven to reduce our suffering through animal tests, it’s not wrong to use them.” But what about the suffering endured by the animals?
When asked if there’s a difference between using animals to test for medicine compared to cosmetics, Aziz says: “The reason animal testing for cosmetics started was because in the 1930s in America, a brand of mascara came out that was blinding women. Whatever you apply to yourself you want it to be safe, be it medicine or cosmetics.” He clarifies his support by adding: “The public are sold this picture of torturing animals, with eye drops in rabbits and chemicals on guinea pigs, and this may have happened decades ago but that’s not real life now.”
Makeup companies are quick to defend the practise, too. Mario Ruiz, Vice President of Communications at a make-up brand, Revlon says: “Revlon does not conduct animal testing but as a global brand, we must comply with local regulations of each market in which we sell our products. In a limited number of countries, including China, governments conduct independent testing in order to satisfy their own requirements.”
Animal testing for cosmetics is clearly a double-edged sword of cruelty-free innovation versus consumer safety, yet who has the right to decide whether an animal should be harmed for this purpose? Animal testing for cosmetics is and always will be, a form of cruelty in the name of beauty, and it needs to end now.
