HOW TO SPOT AN ANIMAL TESTING COMPANY

 Graphic pictures are further down in this story.  If you are offended by disturbing pictures don't scroll down 

Many cosmetics companies misleadingly claim their products are 'not tested on 
animals' but are not so keen to admit that they still use animal-tested 
ingredients. In these crude poisoning tests, chemicals are force-fed to animals, 
injected into them, dripped into their eyes and rubbed into their raw skin. Here 
is an overview that explains how to recognize the companies that try to give the 
impression they are cruelty-free, when they're not!

Cosmetics companies can, broadly speaking, be divided into three categories with 
regard to their animal testing policies.
Chemical-producing companies that test on animals themselves or pay researchers 
to carry out animal tests on their behalf e.g.
Beiersdorf 
Colgate 
Johnson & Johnson 
L'Oreal 
PZ Cussons
Procter & Gamble 
Reckitt Benckiser
Unilever 
They tend to be larger companies and often have a raft of different cosmetic 
brands, for example 'Dove' and 'Organics' are Unilever brands. 'Herbal Essences' 
and 'Max Factor' are P&G brands. 'Garnier' and 'Lancome' are L'Oreal brands, the 
Body Shop are now owned by L'Oreal too. So rule number one is always look to see 
who the parent company is.

 
 The second category are cosmetics companies that tend not to test on animals 
themselves but continue to buy, use and benefit financially from chemical 
ingredients that have recently been tested on animals by their suppliers. Many 
cosmetic brands fall into this category e.g.
Avon (Yes, AVON!)
Boots brands
Chanel
Clarins
Clinique
Estee Lauder
Givenchy
Revlon
Tresemme
Most of them are very clever at deceiving the public with the claims they make 
about animal testing.
The final category consists of companies that adhere to a Fixed Cut Off Date 
scheme. This means that the company will not buy or use ingredients that have 
been tested on animals by themselves or their suppliers after a set date (e.g. 
1995). This is the only method by which manufacturers can send a clear message 
to their suppliers and the rest of the industry that the company is not prepared 
to profit from animal tested ingredients. Most animal testing for cosmetics 
takes place on "new to the world" chemicals. There are already thousands of 
chemicals with a proven safety record available.

You may be wondering why these companies are so keen to have access to new 
chemicals, especially when the majority of consumers are against animal testing 
for cosmetics? Well it's so they can market their products as 'new' and 
'improved' - basically so they can make more money. For example P&G claim that 
their Olay Regenerist moisturizer beautifully regenerates skins' appearance - 
thanks to their new Amino-Peptide Complex. And that their Total Effects 
moisturizer contains an exclusive Vita Niacin formula (the science part!). P&G 
and others are filling their products with all sorts of new chemical 
ingredients. It's to boost their marketing hype and P&G are recognized as world 
leaders. These companies are taking a gamble on the fact that most consumers 
assume that cosmetics are no longer tested on animals or are unable to see 
through their cleverly worded 'animal testing policies'.
How To Interpret Cruelty-Free Claims
If you look at a product that makes no mention of animal testing - be 
suspicious. If a company can make a claim, no matter how meaningless, they 
usually will. It's hard to believe but there are no laws to prevent companies 
from deliberately misleading consumers about their animal testing practices.
PZ Cussons makers of 'Original Source' products say:
"None of our products are tested on animals. We support the development and 
acceptance of alternative methods which reduce or replace the use of animals in 
product safety evaluation."

Notice they mention product testing but not ingredients. Many cosmetic companies also add statements about how much they support and invest in the development of alternative methods of testing - which is a ploy to distract consumers from the fact that they also still test on animals.Clarins says: "In 1987, Clarins was the first French company to cease product testing on animals."Again no mention of ingredients.Estee Lauder says: "We do not conduct animal testing on our products or ingredients, nor ask others to test on our behalf, except when required by law."Avon says: "Avon does not test products or ingredients on animals, nor do we request others to do so on our behalf. Avon will conduct animal testing only when required by law." Seemingly strongly worded statements like this are made by many companies - and it sounds very comprehensive. But they are not being completely honest because they do still buy and use 'new to the world' ingredients that have been tested on animals during their development. Any legal requirement to test on animals only arises because of the companies desire to use new chemicals in the hope of increasing their sales. Many companies also include rabbit logos on their packaging - but this is no guarantee that the item is genuinely cruelty-free either.

Before I finished this report I found another

interesting article about the tobacco industry testing on animals

Thomene Boshoff sent a message to the members of Companies that support Animal 
Testing - Exposed!
--------------------
Subject: Animal Testing and the tobacco industry
Joe Camel isn't the only animal who smokes. For decades, experimenters have 
repeatedly performed inhumane and irrelevant smoking-related tests on animals. 
Although animals would never normally encounter or imbibe tobacco on their own, 
dogs, primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, lambs, chickens, and other 
animals are mutilated, pumped full of nicotine, and forced to inhale smoke.
Dogs, for example, are forced to inhale cigarette smoke on mechanical 
ventilators. In one experiment,holes were cut in beagles' throats and 
made them breathe concentrated cigarette smoke for an entire year. Experimenters 
have also inserted electrodes into dogs' penises to measure the effect of 
cigarette smoke on their sexual performance. Masks are strapped on to the faces 
of rats and mice and cigarette smoke is pumped directly into their noses. Rhesus 
monkeys are confined to chairs with head devices and exposed to nicotine and 
caffeine to determine how these substances affect breathing. 
As you read this, pregnant monkeys at the federally funded Oregon Regional 
Primate Research Center (ORPRC), at Oregon Health and Sciences University 
(OHSU), are confined in small, barren metal cages, while their fetuses are 
exposed to nicotine.
ORPRC experimenter Eliot Spindel has acknowledged that "the deleterious effects 
of maternal smoking during pregnancy are all too well established." Yet his 
five-year study, during which he killed the baby monkeys and dissect their 
lungs, was funded with tax money through 2004. 
Matt Rossell, a former primate technician at ORPRC, is one of the icenter's most 
outspoken critics. Rossell worked at ORPRC for more than two years and was 
responsible for the psychological well being of the primates. According to 
Rossell, animal technicians at ORPRC frequently made mistakes because they were 
forced to rush through their jobs at an assembly line pace. The mistakes, such 
as giving injections to the wrong monkeys, lead to discomfort, stress, and 
incorrect data. Rossell is "convinced that no useful scientific research could 
ever come out of there." 
An Industry Smokescreen
Despite the massive amounts of money spent on animal studies, everything we know 
about cancer and other smoking related illnesses has come from human 
epidemiological (population) and I clinical studies, not from animal 
experiments. Ironically, animal experiments misled the public for years because 
rats, mice, dogs, and other animals do not develop lung cancer as humans do.
The tobacco industry used this misleading data to its advantage for years, 
claiming that smoking did not cause lung cancer in humans. According to the 
California-based animal rights group In Defense of Animals (IDA), one 
experimenter reported in a leading medical journal in 1957 that "the failure of 
many investigators to induce experimental cancers, except in a handful of cases, 
during fifty years of trying, casts serious doubt on the validity of the 
cigarette-lung cancer theory." However, 27 human studies had already established 
a clear link between smoking and cancer.
There are now reams of data on the link between smoking and cancer, but the 
tobacco industry is still desperately grasping for anything that might convince 
the public that smoking isn't dangerous.
It's time for the tobacco industry to pull its head out of the cloud of smoke 
and face the facts: Smoking causes cancer. It is also the leading cause of 
pulmonary illness and death in the United States, including chronic obstructive 
pulmonary disease, asthma, influenza, and pneumonia. In addition, smoking 
contributes to cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, and birth 
defects.
Yet the pointless experiments continue. Millions of dollars and hundreds of 
thousands of animal lives are wasted on experiments that are so cruel and 
unnecessary they have been illegal in Britain since 1997. USA federallaw does 
not even require tobacco products to be tested on animals. The money wasted on 
worthless animal experiments could be much better used for education, health 
services, or drug addiction treatment programs for pregnant women.