On June 28, 2013 testing of cosmetics and its ingredients on animals was banne in India by the Government. The decision is in line with European Union’s similar action.
The announcement came in the wake of European Union banning testing of cosmetic products and their ingredients on animals, which includes a ban on sales of animal-tested cosmetics, regardless of where those tests were conducted.
Israel has also banned the testing of household products and their ingredients on animals as well as the sale of such products if they have been tested on animals.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India had also been pressing upon the government and had been campaigning for an end to the testing of household products and their ingredients on animals in the country.
In the words of Shri. Chaitanya Koduri, PETA India’s science policy adviser, “The Government announcement that testing cosmetics and their ingredients on animals will never be allowed in India again is a victory for animals and science. Animal tests are cruel and unreliable. Non-animal methods of testing are modern, humane and human-relevant.”
Now PETA urges the government to bring in a similar ban on the testing of household products like cleaners on animals in India.
More than 1,200 companies around the world have banned all animal tests in favour of effective, modern non-animal tests, but many still choose to subject animals to painful tests.
PETA claimed that because of the vast physiological differences between humans and the animals used in these tests, the results are often misleading. India is the first country in South Asia to ban the testing of cosmetics and its ingredients on animals.
In the words of Alokparna Sengupta, Humane Society International (HSI)/India’s “Be Cruelty-Free” campaign manager, “This is a major victory for countless animals that will no longer be made to suffer, and it is a proud moment for India as it becomes the first country in South Asia to end cosmetics cruelty.”
Violation of the order is liable for punishment for a term which may extend from 3-10 years and shall also be liable to fine which could be Rs.500 to Rs.10, 000, or with both.
The use of modern non-animal alternative tests also becomes mandatory, replacing invasive tests on animals.
According to Shri. Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda Member of Parliament, “This is a great day for India and for the thousands of animals who will no longer suffer” However, some more work remains to be done. Our government must go a step further by banning cosmetics products that are tested on animals abroad and then imported and sold here in India. Only then will India demonstrate its commitment to compassion and modern, non-animal research methods and truly be cruelty free.
The earliest references to animal testing are found in the writings of the Greeks in the 2nd and 4th centuries BCE. Aristotle and Erasistratus were among the first to perform experiments on living animals. Galen, a physician in 2nd-century Rome, dissected pigs and goats, and is known as the “father of vivisection.”
Avenzoar, an Arabic physician in 12th-century Moorish Spain who also practiced dissection, introduced animal testing as an experimental method of testing surgical procedures before applying them to human patients.
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The term is sometimes more broadly defined as any experimentation on live animals
The cosmetic industry uses four basic tests on animals. The first test is for eye irritations, or Draize test, in which shampoos and cosmetics are put into rabbit’s eyes. The chemical causes blistering, swelling and blindness. The pain often becomes very intense.
The Draize test is an eye or skin irritancy test that involves putting a substance in the eye or on the skin of an immobilized rabbit, and then observing and recording the results. Rabbits are used for this test because of the low amount of tears produced by rabbits’ eyes, allowing the substance to remain in the eye instead of being washed out.
The test is controversial because it is usually used for testing cosmetics and household products, and because of the differences between rabbits’ eyes and human eyes. Also controversial is the subjective nature of the test in recording the results. The test is named after Dr John H. Draize, a toxicologist with the US Food and Drug Administration who developed the test.
The second test is the skin irritation test in which the test animal has an area of its back stripped of fur and the test product repeatedly rubbed into the bare skin causing rash, pain and swelling.
The third test is the LD/50 test (Lethal dose – 50% die). In this test cosmetics are force fed to test animals to determine the amount necessary to cause 50% of them to die in severe agony from such things as organ blockage, toxic reaction, and convulsions.
Fourth is the inhalation test. In this test, animals are sprayed repeatedly in the face for a 2-1/2 hour period, and then killed and their tissues examined.
Are there countries that legally require cosmetics to be tested on animals? China requires that all cosmetics be tested on animals. Brazil also requires that some, but not all, cosmetics be tested on animals.
However, today, we are living longer and healthier lives and we owe much of that achievement to biomedical research based on tests on animals. Experiments on animals are an ethically troubling issue. No one would want to do it, if they can avoid it. But at the present stage of development in medical science it seems unavoidable.
Animal testing has helped find cures for rabies, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, polio, HIV drugs and antibiotics.
The first successful blood transfusion was performed on a dog by Dr Richard Lower in 1666 and perfected in dogs by 1907. Clotting was prevented by the addition of sodium citrate and citrated blood was shown to be safe for transfusion by experimenting on dogs in 1914. Blood transfusion is used after injury and surgery and to treat cancers and anaemia. Open heart surgery would not be possible without it.
Animal research contributed to 70% of the Nobel prizes for physiology or medicine. Many award-winning scientists affirm that they could not have made their discoveries without animals. Polio would still claim hundreds of lives without the animal research carried out by the Nobel laureate
PTI Feture
