Cosmetics and Animal Testing: The Cause of Death and Mistreatment

Animal testing is a problem. Sure some of it is necessary for medical advancements, but cosmetic animal testing is not used for medical advancements, and it has no other reasonable uses. 72% of Americans oppose animal testing in cosmetics, and this reveals that America is already against animal testing, meaning that stopping it will not be a problem. Animal testing in cosmetics should be banned permanently, because it decreases 94% of all animal testing, keeps 72% of the population happy, and saves animals from pain and death.

Animals in these cosmetic facilities are put through harsh tests, but are also abused in them too. An example of these abusive tests is the Draize test, in which a cosmetic is repetitively applied to a rabbit’s eye, to test irritancy, however this test is extremely painful, similar to the fact that soap burns people’s eyes when applied. Another example is the LD50 test, which tests what the dose of a cosmetic is to kill 50% of the animal test population, and is responsible for more than 2/3 of animal testing deaths. Furthermore, to prove that the people handling these animals are abusive, a television crew placed hidden cameras in the Huntingdon Life Sciences lab, and filmed a technician punching and shaking a dog (1997). There is no reason to harm and kill these animals just so we can get a beauty treatment, or a nice bath. That one bath or beauty treatment could put several animals into a testing facility where they will be brutally treated, and possible killed.

Why kill animal if it is possible take just a few cells from a human and reproduce them, or turn them into a live organ that is suitable to be tested on? These cells are fully capable of providing the information a live animal could, and more, because they are human not animal cells. 3D printed organs can also be tested on, and are quicker to produce, and also avoids slaughtering animals for their organs. A few examples of alternatives for animal testing in cosmetics are computer models, lab grown tissue, or 3D printed organs (generated from lab tissue). Computer models known as QSARs can predict skin corrosivity and irritation with an accuracy of 90-95%, and this shows how accurate these computer models can be. Lab Grown Tissue and 3D printed organs are much more accurate too, “The clear scientific advantage of using human tissue is that the data it provides is directly related to people, unlike experiments on animals” according to animalaid.com. After all, it costs extra money to breed, feed, and contain these animals in animal testing facilities.

Certain animals are not like humans because of the many different metabolic, cellular, and anatomical differences between the two species, and this can be inconvenient for testing. Moreover, some animals may react badly to some drugs that are beneficial to humans, and could lose life saving medicines due to a fault in research. More importantly, animals cannot communicate like “my head hurts” or, “I cannot feel my arm!”. One drug, TGN1412, was tested on animals and in humans. All the human patients suffered life-threatening side-effects (heart, kidney, and liver failure) which did not appear in animals. The humans were administered doses of almost 500 times less than those deemed safe for animals, yet due to the difference in DNA, a completely different effect occurred. Changing to a much more accurate alternative could prevent these incidents, where humans are tested on because there is no need to test on humans again.

38% of America believes that animal testing in cosmetics is fine, but that is because they either profit from the business and do not want to lose it, or they just do not know the deathly and torturous tests that animals go through just to create one cosmetic. Another idea a pro cosmetic animal testing supporter might say is that if we stop animal testing in cosmetics, it will lose thousands of jobs for those who test. Well, if the U.S. switches to one of the alternatives, such as lab grown tissue, new lab jobs in the same field of business will arise such as technicians, physiologists, tissue testers, and lab jobs related to growing the tissue. Furthermore, those supporters might also think that “hey, how can this tissue sense pain that can be easily recorded? Well, the tissue has nerves embedded in it like regular human tissue, and the electric signal produced by the pain nerves is easily measured in a lab. “Oh there is only like 300 animals being tested in the U.S., so it does not really matter whether they get tested on or not!” Almost 1 million animals were tested on in, 2014 according to the US government statistics. Just think about how important fashion is these days. Almost everybody uses eyeliner, eyeshadow, lipstick, makeup, soap, conditioner, moisturizing cream, perfume, hair dye, nail polish, lip gloss, bath salts, foundation, anti-wrinkle, sunscreen, and much more.

Animal testing in cosmetics has no place in science. It causes pain to these innocent animals, who have been bred in the lab just to die, but if animal testing is stopped 94% of these animals will not be bred to die. Cheaper, cruelty-free, and more accurate cosmetic testing solutions exist, and using them will make 72% of the population happier, so why not stop animal testing in cosmetics?

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