A major protest campaign in the 1980s raised awareness about how harsh and inhumane the Draize Test could be for its unwitting subjects, mostly albino white rabbits. Many cosmetics companies swore off the test as a result, though some still use it today. Other similar, albeit less Draconian, forms of animal tests remain prevalent today throughout the cosmetics and personal care products industry.
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Dear EarthTalk: Is the “Draize Test” using live animals still used to test cosmetics?
-- Jim M., Bridgeport, CT
The Draize Test was devised back in 1944 by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) toxicologist John H. Draize to evaluate the risks of normal short-term exposure to new cosmetics and other personal care products. Still used today by some companies, the test involves applying a small amount of the substance under study to an animal’s eye or skin for several hours, and then observing whether or not irritation occurs over the following week or two. In most cases the animal subjects—usually albino rabbits bred for the lab—are put to death after the sometimes maiming and often painful test.
Of course, animal rights advocates have long opposed the Draize Test, which they consider cruel to the lab animals used as subjects. According to the non-profit National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS), the Draize Test causes “extreme discomfort and pain” to the animals involved. In the eye version of the test, rabbits are placed in restraining stocks and their eyelids are held open with clips—in some cases for days at a time—to keep them from blinking away the test solutions.
As for the skin version of the test, animals’ fur is shaved and then several layers of skin are removed with sticky tape before technicians apply test substances and cover over the abraded area with plastic sheeting. NAVS reports that either version of the test can cause “intense burning, itching and pain” and can leave subjects “ulcerated and bleeding.”
According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT), a major protest campaign in the 1980s raised awareness among consumers and within the cosmetics industry about how harsh and inhumane the Draize Test could be for its unwitting subjects. Many cosmetics companies swore off the Draize Test as a result in intervening years, though other similar albeit less draconian forms of animal tests remain prevalent throughout the cosmetics and personal care products industry.
NAVS maintains that not only is animal testing of any kind inhumane, but it’s also more expensive and less reliable than other methods which do not rely on inflicting pain and suffering on rabbits and other furry friends. “The results of non-animal tests tend to be more consistent, and better predictors for human reactions,” reports the group. “In addition, companies are spared the expense of breeding, caging, feeding and disposing of animals that are used in testing laboratories.” Some of the leading non-animal tests are conducted on cell cultures, human and animal corneas from eye banks, corneal tissue cultures, and frozen corneas supplied by hospitals.
Another reason many companies are moving away from the Draize Test is that considerable information has already been yielded and recorded from past testing. Many companies are taking closer looks at the results of tests done years ago to glean information on how safe similar ingredients in their new products are without having to carry out new tests on new generations of lab animals. NAVS hopes that with the continued development of alternative methods, “animal tests, like the slide rule, will someday be made obsolete by advancements in technology.”
CONTACTS: NAVS, www.navs.org; CAAT, http://caat.jhsph.edu.
SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.
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15 Comments
Add CommentThis is so incredibly awful. How can it still be going on as it is so expensive and useless? How can I help put this to an end?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt first when I thought about animal testing, I just imagined the rabbits having make-up applied to their faces, or were washed with the products, and not directly and forcefully adding the non-dilute product into their most sensitive parts. This testing is disgusting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe should eat the rabbits when they are done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMay God give 7th entity the birth of a lab mouse in it's next birth.... he he
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps YC would rather be the first human on which a novel cosmetic is tested. Just because a compound is chemically similar does not mean it will have similar effects. Just look at the difference one single carbon atom makes when added to a simple molecule of water (it becomes formaldehyde). But carbon is safe and so is water. So lets just dump CH2O in our eyes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course, you realise that anything that is not animal tested is, essentially, human tested, with the first human to put it on as the unwitting lab rat. There is a reason they were trying to see if a chemical burns a rabbit's eyes. Because it is preferable to burning the eyes of a few thousands unaware humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are serious in asking how to put it to an end, an obvious and simple solution is to stop buying their products. Choose vegan products instead (they are usually labeled "Cruelty-Free" and have a further benefit of having no animal ingredients or by-products).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are 800-numbers on nearly every product you buy. Call them. Ask if their products are vegan or cruelty-free.
Do not forget you are the consumer, and the only person in charge of your life and how you live it. You are not at the mercy of the products you buy or the stores you visit. They are at yours.
Dimitris and 7: You do not seem to have read or understood the article in its entirety. Choosing not to test on animals does not default to testing on live humans (let alone thousands of them--in the highly unlikely event a manufacturer would just roll a product out to market with no initial testing or small trial groups first). The article points to better, cheaper, and more reliable methods that require no living animal (human or otherwise) to suffer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArkanjel, I did read and understand the article; it is extremely biased and provides no citations. This reads more like a PETA editorial than a balanced answer to a question. I may be wrong, but I belive every product for sale in the USA that is for use on humans has to have had animal testing. Some labels make it seem like they don't test by saying "WE do not test on animals", implying they pay a third party to do so. Or, "this final product was not tested on animals", implying that the individual components were.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do agree with you on one point however, If you don't like it, don't buy it. Vote with your dollar, not via politicians.
Actually, cosmetics and consumer products are not required to be tested on animals. Companies that sign statements certifying that they do not test their products, or the ingredients of their products, really don't test on animals. Chemists in those companies usually know enough about particular chemistries to say whether a particular formulation will be irritating or corrosive, and this can be confirmed in non-animal based test methods. For skin and eye irritation, models grown using human cells into reconstructed human "eye" and "skin" cell preparations are available, and must be used in Europe. The EU has a ban on animal testing for cosmetics for most endpoints, and also requires the use of alternatives to animals if available, for other products (like industrial chemicals). Furthermore, the EU spends millions per year developing alternatives. The US is a backwater compared to the EU in this regard, and the barrier is NOT science, but inertia and will.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLogic tells you that mammals (rats, mice, rabbits, and humans) will respond to chemicals in relatively similar ways, but as this assumption is challenged with actual data, it turns out that the animal tests we have relied upon to predict human responses to chemical exposures for the last 4-6 decades are not accurate--so yes, consumers are the "guinea pigs"--whether we test products in animals first or not.
If you have a Facebook and want to get involved in ending animal testing, search PAWS: Providing Animals a World of Safety, and join the Cause. Also check out their blog pawspals4change.blogspot.com. They fund the National Anti-Vivisection Society, which was mentioned in the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have for many years carefully avoided where possible using products tested on animals - in the UK this is relatively straightforward with most major supermarkets having non animal tested 'own brand' products.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever an interesting grey area for people to think about is brands that themselves are not animal tested but that are owned by a parent company that has a poor track record in this area. The Body Shop was one of the first high-street brands that makes a point of its against animal testing stance, however a couple of years ago the chain was taken over by L'Oreal - a firm which has a dubious stance on the issue and has been accused of misleading consumers over whether or not it continues to test on animals.
For those who are still erring towards the 'its better to play it safe and test on animals' my argument would be that we could quite happily do without new cosmetics and shampoo formulations and that if making do with the ones we have is the price of ending unnecessary testing on animals of vanity products it is well worth it.
this rlly sux omg
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat Amandine said was what i thought to
when i was younger i thought that animails had like lipstick on and stuff i never imagined that this was really happening
why dont we test the "poison and acid" on the people that developed them not on innocent animals
It is astonishing that human interests are always considered supremely higher in status than animal interests. Even in the case of wantom interests, as in this case of human vanity as opposed to animals right to life or to a non-painful existence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI only buy cruelty-free products. I can't stand the idea of something I'm using being in bunny eyes. They say you can tell a lot about a culture/civilization by how they treat those who are at their mercy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this