EU ban new cosmetics tested on animals

[MIST]

On March 6, courted animal rights organizations from across Europe the European Commission to mark the EU's historic decision to put an end to animal tested cosmetics. From Monday, March 11 this year, animal testing anywhere in the world are not allowed on new cosmetics sold in EU

We did it! EU bans animal-tested cosmetics prohibition applies to all cosmetics, including all toiletries, from soap to toothpaste.

- We are now seeing the result of over 20 years of joint campaigning by the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments, where Swedish Animal Rights is included, says Cecilia Mille, director of international affairs at Animal Rights

Animal Rights was one of the founders of the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE), which since 1990 has grown to now represent 26 animal welfare organizations in 24 countries in Europe. The coalition has been at the forefront of efforts to ban both animal testing for cosmetics in the EU, as the complete sales ban which now takes effect.

- We have been working for this moment for over 20 years and congratulate Commissioner Tonio Borg to have seen that this ban has been in place. Our international campaign No Cruel Cosmetics has shown how strong the feeling is of citizens against the use of animals to test cosmetics. We are very pleased that the Commission has listened to the people, says Cecilia Mille.

No Cruel Cosmetics campaign was launched in 2011 to ensure that the ban would come into force as planned and without exception. Since then, the campaign has been supported by Paul McCartney, Morrissey and Sienna Miller, and the petition has been signed by over 250,000 people across Europe.

Finally EU could agree about something.
Congratulations.
Otherwise there use to be no rule without exception

 

[MjsLovelyOne88]

I'm extremely happy because it's so hard to find cosmetics that are not animal tested, or any product for that matter. Yay :clapping: the whole world should follow this example.

 

[Ashtanga]

Great!!!! :clapping:

 

[MIST]

Countries outside EU can´t sell their cosmetics to EU countries if the products have been tested on animals.
I don´t know how they can be sure the products are not animaltested but I guess there are people who keep an eye on things.

In Defence of Animals(IDA)
IDA is thrilled to tell you about an exciting development in worldwide efforts to stop cruel experiments on animals. As of this week, the European Union (EU) now bans the sale of cosmetics that were tested on animals, even if the testing happened outside the EU.

This should have a dramatic ripple effect all the way to "the American side of the pond," as now U.S. companies will only be able to sell cosmetics in Europe if they were not tested on animals.

This has been a long, hard battle, involving many organizations. We thank our colleagues and fellow animal protection organizations in Europe and the United States and, most importantly, thank you! Decades-long campaigns like this only succeed with the perseverance of organizations and their supporters. Thank you for standing behind IDA and the multitude of other organizations worldwide who made this dream a reality. Let's use the momentum from this fabulous victory to convince all cosmetics companies, wherever they are based around the world, to follow Europe's inspiring example and end cosmetics testing on animals once and for all.

 

[thrillerchild]

:clapping::jump:

 

[MIST]

We did it! Our Be Cruelty-Free campaign has just scored another landmark victory for lab animals -- a ban on all animal testing for cosmetics in India!

After more than a year of intensive campaigning and policy negotiations by HSI/India, the Drug Controller General has approved the complete removal of any mention of animal tests from India’s cosmetics standard. India now joins the ranks of Europe and Israel as subjecting rabbits, rats, and mice to painful or lethal testing becomes illegal and is replaced with modern non-animal alternatives.

With your help, we can make the victory even sweeter! Urge India's Minister of Health and Family welfare to ban the import and sale of cruel cosmetics in India.

HSI and our partners have been the driving force behind this testing ban, but we couldn’t have done it without the vital help of our supporters and so many elected representatives and celebrities. We thank the compassionate Members of Parliament--especially Smt Maneka Gandhi and Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda--and other State Legislative Assemblies and Legislative Councils who took the time to press the government to take this step.

And we're grateful to the long list of stars who shone for animals by signing our Be Cruelty-Free India pledge, raising public awareness of the unnecessary suffering endured by animals used for cosmetics testing.

But our work isn’t done yet, and we're asking you to stand with us and take the next step -- act now to ban the import of any cosmetics tested on animals to India.

If animal testing of cosmetics is illegal inside India’s labs, it also should be illegal on India’s shop shelves. As we did in Europe, HSI is leading the campaign in India for a ban on the import and sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals anywhere in the world.

Only then can India truly Be Cruelty-Free.
Humane Society International

:jump:

 

[MIST]

China plan to abolish the requirement for cosmetics to be tested on animals
Cruelty Free International is delighted that China is proposing to abolish its requirement for animal testing for cosmetics including shampoo, skincare and perfume from June 2014.

This is a ground-breaking moment – currently China requires all cosmetics to be submitted for animal testing in Government laboratories. This breakthrough has the potential to transform the situation for ethical cosmetic companies that have, up to now, refused to sell in China in order to remain Leaping Bunny certified, which bars cosmetics whose ingredients are tested on animals.

Cruelty Free International’s China Task Force, made up of leading cosmetics companies and with the support of the European Commission and Cosmetics Europe, has made tremendous headway since the exciting and influential new partnership was born.

Last month the China Task Force, with the support of leading European companies such as The Body Shop, l’Occitane, Montagne Jeunesse and Marks and Spencer, responded to a China Food and Drug Administration (FDA) consultation urging for a route for industry to be able to market cosmetics in China without animal testing.

Just in the last few weeks, Cruelty Free International’s Director of Policy, Dr Nick Palmer, spoke to the REACH 24H Chemical Regulatory Conference and Asia’s premier cosmetics industry event, the Asia Cosmetics Innovation Summit 2013, both in Shanghai. Dr Palmer pressed the case to open up the Chinese market to companies that do not want their products tested on animals.

 

[MIST]

It has been an extremely busy year for Cruelty Free International. We are the only organization campaigning solely for a global ban on animal testing for cosmetics and consumer products and with the help of our supporters we have made some amazing achievements for animals. We are moving ever closer to our mission to end testing on animals for cosmetics products throughout the world.

Here are some of our achievements from 2013:

In March, after 20 years of campaigning by our founding organization the BUAV, we celebrated the end of animal cosmetics testing in Europe.


Our joint Global Pledge with The Body Shop calling for a worldwide ban on animal testing for cosmetics received support from over 1 million people!


Cruelty Free International received support from some fantastic celebrities throughout 2013, including Peter Dinklage and Norman Reedus.


We saw a major breakthrough for non-animal tested cosmetics in China following our attendance at a number of key meetings and work by our China Task force.


India became the first country in Asia to ban animal testing for cosmetics and ingredients. Maneka Gandhi, founder of People for Animals - Cruelty Free International's partner in India was instrumental in making this happen.


Following the launch our campaign in Brazil, and our petition which received over 120,000 signatures, Brazil has made moves towards a ban on animal tested cosmetics.


Following Cruelty Free International’s campaign, Korea proposes to recognise non-animal safety tests for ‘functional cosmetics’.


ASEAN considers a Cruelty Free International proposal to ban animal testing for cosmetics.


Cruelty Free International funds a breakthrough project to enable Vietnamese laboratories to convert to non-animal alternatives.


Cruelty Free International presented at Natural Beauty & Spa 2013, Cosmetic Compliance Summit and International Cooperation on Cosmetics Regulation Conference in Japan. We also gave a Key Note Speech at the North American Sustainable Cosmetics Summit in New York.


We launched the Freedom campaign to persuade governments around the world to enact similar legislation to the EU ban on animal testing for cosmetics.


Cruelty Free International launches a US Office and a post in East Asia.


Cruelty Free International CEO Michelle Thew presented at the British Retail Consortium – advising the whole high street on going cruelty free.


This year Cruelty Free International has launched the Clean Up Cruelty campaign to ban the testing of household products and their ingredients on animals. Take the Clean Up Cruelty Pledge to play your part.


Take the pledge
https://www.change.org/en-GB/petiti...aning-products?dm_i=1DL5,22OX4,9YW9BN,7HFKJ,1

 

[Ashtanga]

We're trying to change that here in Brazil too! Many brands test on animals!

 

[Wash]

Finally!!

 

[MIST]

India Bans Using Animals to Test Household Products


What do India and Israel have in common?

They are the only two countries that ban using animals to test both cosmetics and household products. The European Union has made it illegal to sell cosmetics that were tested on animals, but has no similar restrictions on testing household products. The United States doesn’t limit the testing of either kind of product, though some individual states do. The U.S. also doesn’t require animal tests for cosmetics, but sadly, that may change. There is a bill before Congress that would require every ingredient in cosmetics to undergo toxicity testing. The Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act, H.R. 1385, was introduced by Rep. Janice Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, last March. It was referred to committee last July and hasn’t been heard from since, so hopefully it is headed for oblivion.

India joined the exclusive no-testing club recently. Just last year it banned testing cosmetics on animals, as Alicia Graef reported on Care2. Now India has announced that it will no longer allow labs to rub harsh chemicals into guinea pigs’ bare, shaved skin. They also can’t use the infamous Draize test, which involves dousing restrained animals’ eyes with painful brews and then, after as long as three weeks, observing how much of their eyes have been destroyed.

Instead, to test the safety of dish detergents and air fresheners, Indian companies will use alternative, non-animal testing methods, then at the very end conduct spot testing on humans. Given that the question they want to answer is whether the chemicals will hurt people, testing on them makes a lot of sense.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claims a lot of the credit for the change in India’s law. It reports that the Bureau of Indian Standards, which made the decision, has only one animal-protection representative on its committee on household products: Dr. Chaitanya Koduri, PETA India’s science policy adviser.

Ending cosmetics testing on animals has been more popular lately than changing methods for household products. The European Union has banned using animals to test cosmetics and their ingredients. Individual companies have unilaterally announced that they will not test their products on animals, including Shiseido, The Body Shop and Lush. This move is all up-side: they get points from humane consumers, and they don’t sacrifice safety because non-animal tests can be more reliable than vivisection is. Non-animal models can replicate human bodily systems better than, say, rats can.

Vicki Katrinak, Policy Analyst at the American Anti-Vivisection Society, thinks there are several reasons that there are more restrictions on cosmetics testing than on testing household products on animals. First, the ingredients in household products are “generally more caustic, they are more likely to cause problems when you get them on your skin [or] you inhale them,” she says. That means the public is less willing to forego animal tests on these products than they are on cosmetics, which tend to be less dangerous to consumers.

Second, Katrinak notes that there isn’t a perfect non-animal replacement test for every procedure that is used on animals, and the gaps are more likely to be in the tests used for household products. When the European Union and others stopped testing cosmetics on animals, researchers went hunting for alternative tests that could replace vivisection, and they came up with a lot — but they were geared towards investigating the ingredients used in cosmetics. Because it remained legal to test household products on animals, there wasn’t the same demand for scientists to find new, humane ways to do it.

Third, Katrinak says that environmental protection organizations are concerned that household products often wind up going down the drain into the water supply, adding one more reason to make sure they are safe before selling them.

I too prefer non-toxic water, but it doesn’t make sense that hurting and killing non-human animals is the only way to find out whether a chemical will hurt human animals. Our water would be safer if we created incentives for researchers to develop superior non-animal tests for these substances. Hopefully India’s new law will prove to be that kind of incentive.



Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/india-bans-using-animals-to-test-household-products.html#ixzz2sC9Dv3nS

EU have to ban animaltesting on household products too.
There are so many householdproducts already, do we really need more?

 

[SheilaMJFan4Ever]

I wish they'd stop testing on animals here in the U.S.! Use death row inmates as test subjects. I know that isn't politically correct, but so what? The years they spend on endless appeals, delaying the sentence being carried out could be time used for a good cause.

 

[Ashtanga]

I wish they'd stop testing on animals here in the U.S.! Use death row inmates as test subjects. I know that isn't politically correct, but so what? The years they spend on endless appeals, delaying the sentence being carried out could be time used for a good cause.

Here in my country (this year in January) was created and approved a law banning animal testing for cosmetics. It's a start and a great victory. I hope this will be strictly monitored so that no one violates the law. ray:

 

[MIST]

It’s About Time: Animal Testing for Cosmetics Could Soon Be Banned in the U.S.

Animal advocates have been given an epic reason to cheer this week with the introduction of landmark legislation that could end the suffering of millions of animals who are unnecessarily tortured and killed to test the safety of cosmetics in the U.S.

The Humane Cosmetics Act (H.R. 4148), which was introduced by Rep. Jim Moran, will make it illegal to conduct or commission animal testing for cosmetics after a one year phase in, which will be followed by a ban on the interstate sale of products and ingredients that were made using animal testing after three years.

“The U.S. can and should phase out the use of animals in cosmetic safety testing. Not only are animal-based tests fundamentally inhumane, they also rely on outmoded science that can fail to accurately predict safety for humans,” said Rep. Moran in a statement. “This legislation would encourage the use of testing alternatives that are more effective and cheaper to conduct, helping the American cosmetic industry remain the dominant, and humane, leader in the global cosmetics market.”

How Things Currently Stand

Even though animal testing is not required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the Product Safety Commission in the U.S., and despite the fact that alternatives to animal testing exist, many companies continue to test their products and ingredients on animals. In fact, the FDA leaves it up to companies to substantiate the safety of their own products and recalls are left entirely up to manufacturers.

According to the Environmental Working Group, “89 percent of all ingredients in cosmetics have not been evaluated for safety by any publicly accountable institution.”

The number of products labeled “cruelty-free” or “not tested on animals” might make it seem like we’re making progress, but those labels can be misleading because “cruelty-free” isn’t technically, or legally, defined. Products that are simply labeled as “not tested on animals” or “cruelty-free” may have been tested by other companies, in other countries, at the ingredient level or at certain stages of development.

Because the Animal Welfare Act does not require that all laboratory animal use in the U.S. be reported, we may never know exactly how many animals died because of a new product, but numbers are estimated to be in the millions. Not only are we not required to test on animals, but conflicting legislation could mean millions more would be senselessly experimented on and killed.

The U.S. Is Falling Behind Global Progress

While hundreds of ethical companies have pledged not to test on animals, a number of other countries have already taken steps to end animal testing for cosmetics proving that it’s an unethical and unnecessary practice that belongs in the past.

The European Union’s ban on the testing and marketing of animal-tested cosmetics and ingredients, which was enacted in 2013, was a major milestone for animals in labs and has set the stage for other countries to follow. Israel and Norway followed suit and were joined by India last year. According to Cruelty Free International, Korea, Brazil and ASEAN are also taking steps to end cosmetics testing on animals. In June, China will end its mandatory animal testing requirement for imported cosmetics.

With global markets closing their doors to products that have been tested on animals, a move by the U.S. would not only be an ethically sound one, but will also allow companies here to continue to compete.

TAKE ACTION!

With the availability of data on thousands of ingredients that have already been proven safe, advances in technology and growing consumer demand for cruelty-free products, there’s no reason for the U.S. to lag behind on this issue. Now our lawmakers need to hear from us.

Please sign and share the petition urging your representative to support and co-sponsor the Humane Cosmetics Act and take a minute to contact them directly.

To find animal-friendly products already on the market, visit gocrueltyfree.org.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/its-abo...-soon-be-banned-in-the-u-s.html#ixzz2vOQhRPQZ

 

[MIST]

Companies that torture bunnies by burning their eyes with cosmetics, that feed lethal doses of cosmetics to mice, that test not only the cosmetics but any of the ingredients on animals can no longer sell their products in the European Union.

The European Court of Justice, the EU's top court, ruled against three companies that tried to sell cosmetics with ingredients tested on animals in China. Although EU law forbids testing cosmetics on animals, the companies argued that animal testing is required by Chinese law and since the products were not tested in the EU or by EU companies, they could be sold there. Thankfully, the Court did not agree.

"The European Court of Justice said EU law bars any cosmetic product containing ingredients which have been tested on animals, wherever that may occur." It explicitly ruled that there are no exceptions.

"The law aims to promote the use of alternative methods to meet consumer safety standards and that 'objective would be seriously compromised if the prohibitions... could be circumvented by carrying out the animal testing in third countries,' it said": https://goo.gl/dRajRC

It's time for the rest of the world to catch up.
https://www.facebook.com/nathanwinograd/