(MintPress) – Chalk up another victory for animal rights advocates in the European Union (EU).
All 27 nations that comprise the EU banned the use of animal testing on finished cosmetics in 2004, but on Monday the EU Commission closed a loophole in the initial ban by requiring all of the EU’s trading partners to not test cosmetics on animals, effective immediately.
This extension of the animal testing ban means any cosmetic that contains an ingredient that was tested on animals or contains an ingredient that was tested on animals is now prohibited. But consumers won’t notice a change right away, as any products containing ingredients tested on animals before the ban can remain on shelves.
“This is a great opportunity for Europe to set an example of responsible innovation in cosmetics without any compromise on consumer safety,” said Tonio Borg, the EU’s top official on health and consumer issues.
Animal rights lobbyists applauded the commission’s decision to extend the ban and said EU officials had “listened to the people.”
In an interview with Mint Press News, Jessica Sandler, director of regulatory testing for the advocacy group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in America, said the group was thrilled the ban went through as planned.
“We’re going to remember the 11th of March 2013 as a monumental day for animal, consumers and science,” she said. “We applaud the people of Europe and the European parliament for this ethical stand.”
The ban on animal testing didn’t happen overnight though. Two groups that worked to eliminate animal testing on cosmetics, the anti-vivisection group (BUAV) and the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE) said it took about 20 years of hard work and campaigning to make the ban happen.
BUAV also highlighted the fact that while the EU now has a fairly overarching ban, there are still many countries in the world that still test cosmetics on animals, including the United States.
“The U.S. has not taken the ethical stand that Europe has taken,” said Sandler. “Namely that animals should not die for another shade of lipstick or eyeliner.”
But not everyone in Europe is celebrating.
Cosmetics Europe, a trade body representing the EU’s €71 billion ($93 billion) cosmetics industry, says the ban “acts as a brake on innovation.”
The company’s chief Bertil Heerink said “by implementing the ban at this time, the European Union is jeopardizing the industry’s ability to innovate,” putting the 27-country bloc at odds with its own goal of fostering a knowledge and science-driven economy.
The cosmetic industry’s European trade body also has concerns about the new EU ban, citing that the ban threatens the industry’s competitiveness and comes too early because there is still no alternative for some specific animal tests to ensure the safety of all ingredients.
Animal testing in the United States
Coincidentally or not, the EU ban came the same week as the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International kicked off its inaugural “Be Cruelty-Free Week,” which encourages consumers to get involved in creating a humane economy with the power of their pocketbook and voices.
“While policy is important, consumers can act now to help animals by purchasing cruelty-free products and demanding that cosmetic companies go cruelty-free,” said Pascaline Clerc, senior director of animal research issues for The Humane Society of the United States.
Despite the fact that a poll from Lake Research Partners found that 67 percent of voters in the United States oppose testing cosmetics on animals, U.S. cosmetic companies continue to test new products and ingredients on animals.
“As these poll results demonstrate, U.S. companies still conducting tests on animals need to move away from these practices given the public’s concern for animal suffering and human safety,” Clerc said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t require the use of animals in testing cosmetics for safety, but the agency doesn’t exactly discourage the use of animal testing either. On its website, the agency says it has “consistently advised cosmetic manufacturers to employ whatever testing is appropriate and effective for substantiating the safety of their products. It remains the responsibility of the manufacturer to substantiate the safety of both ingredients and finished cosmetic products prior to marketing.”
The FDA makes sure to note that when animal testing is used, the agency advocates that the maximum amount of research and useful scientific information be obtained from the minimum number of animals, and encourages researchers to employ the most humane methods available during the testing process.
The agency also says that it “supports and adheres to the provisions of applicable laws, regulations and policies governing animal testing, including the Animal Welfare Act and the Public Health Service Policy of Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.”
Animal testing is largely performed on cosmetics such as lipstick, nail polish, eye and facial make-up, shampoo, skin creams and shaving cream. The animals that are often used in these experiments include rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and rats.
Experiments can include: “skin and eye irritation tests where chemicals are rubbed onto the shaved skin or dripped into the eyes of restrained rabbits without any pain relief. Other tests involve force feeding chemicals for weeks to months, and widely condemned lethal dose tests, in which animals are forced to swallow large amounts of a test chemical to determine the dose that causes death.”
Sandler told Mint Press that if the United States also would reject the idea of using animals as test subjects, scientists would employ the more sophisticated non-animal methods even more widely. But some U.S. cosmetics-related groups are actually calling for the increased use of animals to test cosmetic products.
Economic impact on the United States
Like Cosmetics Europe, a large concern for U.S.-based beauty makers is what happens to their profits when animal testing is banned.
The EU has slowly phased-out animal testing over the years, during which many U.S. companies selling cosmetics and personal care products have already decided to stop selling overseas.
In 2011, U.S. beauty makers generated about $38.3 billion in revenue, according to the Washington-based industry trade group, Personal Care Products Council.
“This [ban] had an impact on the U.S. cosmetic industry,” said Kathy Guillermo, senior vice-president of laboratory investigation for the activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, known as PETA. “It also ushered in a whole new era of non-animal science” in Europe.
Thanks to advancements in science, alternatives to animal testing include testing new products and ingredients on samples, such as lab-made human tissues, which are reportedly more relevant to people, more efficient and cost effective than animal testing.
“I think it’s important to know that animals aren’t the only ones who will be suffering, who will be spared,” said Sandler. She added that animals and humans are genetically different, so testing human tissue is a much more reliable indicator of how a human would react to a cosmetic or ingredient.
“Animal testing has been used since around the time of World War I,” Sanders said, explaining that it’s time for a whole new era of science since we’re not using the same types of cars or word processing devices we used a century ago either.
Flaws in the ban
Though the EU became one step closer to having a completely cruelty-free cosmetics market this week, the ban still has a few loopholes.
One is that any new cosmetics manufactured outside the EU containing ingredients tested on animals could still be sold in Europe if the manufacturer can demonstrate the safeness of the cosmetic without using information gathered from animal tests. Similarly, cosmetics with pharmaceutical ingredients that were tested on animals can also still be marketed in the EU.