Victoria's Green Matters - 14th Jan 2011

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

Did you know that the cosmetics that you use are likely to have been tested on animals? Maybe you don’t think that it matters. Do you think that it is right, in this day and age, that we submit other sentient creatures to pain and distress just so that we can consider a cosmetic suitable for us to use? Something to think about.

A European law, designed to ban the sale in Europe of any cosmetics tested on animals anywhere in the world, should have come into effect in 2013. It has been delayed by anything up to four years because replacement tests not involving animals have not been developed by the cosmetics industry. Neil Parish, MP, a member of the parliamentary group on animal welfare, has demanded an end “to needless animal testing purely for the commercial gain of industry”.

In 2004 the European Cosmetics Directive banned the testing of all ingredients on animals. Contrary legislation in the European Union has meant that chemicals that have been tested on animals for safety under one set of regulations have ended up being used in cosmetics that should have been subject to the 2004 legislation. We cannot now be sure that products with the relevant labelling can be trusted. It is also true that many animal tests do not correctly predict the action of chemicals on human beings. The European commission has great hope that advances in molecular and cellular biology will produce alternatives to animal testing and provide safer, more accurate and kinder results.

Until the legislation becomes law, we can only strive to take as much trouble as possible to ensure that we are not contributing to animal suffering. We must not buy products that we know to have been tested on animals. Unfortunately, most mass produced cosmetics are made by the most unscrupulous manufacturers.