Slow progress on animal testing ban
June 19, 2009 by Jo
SLOW PROGRESS ON ALTERNATIVES TO ANIMAL TESTING
Animal testing is due to be completely banned in the EU by 2013. Too far away for those of us who support an immediate ban on all animal testing in skin care and cosmetics.
For those who will have the ban enforced upon them there have been problems in finding safe and effective alternatives. In the areas of sensitisation and irritation progress has been easier than areas such as cancer and reproductive toxicity the search for an alternative has been and looks like continuing to move slowly.
The EU commissioner for consumer affairs Meglena Kuneva has stated
” I therefore hope that more efforts will be invested in this area, including from the cosmetics industry, in order to accelerate the new development of scientific concepts and techniques such as Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships in order to comply with given deadlines in 2009 and 2013.”
The EU has signed a co-operation agreement with Canada, Japan and the United States to promote the fast tracking of finding alternative methods to animal testing. This combined approach can only be of help in ensuring the 2013 deadline is met.
In the interim I guess we can support those companies that don’t test their products on animals.
Comments
Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!