Actress Julia Christie reflects on the infamous secret of the cosmetics industry – animal experimentation. It is still hard for her to believe that in the third millennium, a normal person would agree to kill a living creature in order to produce a new lipstick or plumbing cleaner.
Here’s what she writes:
When I buy cosmetics, hygiene products or household chemicals, I always think about cruelty to animals. Many products that we use in everyday life have been tested on animals before they hit the store counter. It is hard to believe that now, in the third millennium, a normal person would agree to kill a living creature, be it a rabbit, a guinea pig or a kitten, in order to produce a new lipstick or bathroom cleaner. However, millions of animals die this way, although there are many humane alternatives.
Do you want to know what happens to the experimental animal during the testing of a particular product?
We’ve all had a small drop of shampoo in our eyes, and we rinsed our eyes thoroughly to wash off the shampoo, because it burns the eyes very much. And imagine what it would be like for you if someone poured a whole tablespoon of shampoo into your eye, and you would not be able to wash it off with water or tears. This is exactly what happens to the guinea pigs in the Draize test: the animals are put on the eye with the substance to be tested and wait until the cornea is damaged. Often the test ends with the fact that the cornea becomes cloudy, the eye dies. The head of the rabbit is firmly fixed with a special collar and the animal cannot even rub its eye with its paw, which corrodes the applied preparation.
As a child, I cried when I fell on the pavement and skinned my knees. But at least no one was rubbing cleansers into my wounds. But in tests for skin irritation, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and sometimes even dogs, cats and monkeys, have their hair shaved off, the skin is removed and the test substance is rubbed into the wound.
How do you feel after eating too much junk food? Can you imagine what would happen to you if a liter of perfume or dishwashing detergent were injected into your stomach through a tube? Rats and guinea pigs (their physiology is such that they do not have the ability to vomit) are injected with huge amounts of detergents, cosmetics or any other substances and wait until a certain percentage of the animals die. The absurd “Lethal Dose 50” test is not considered complete until half of the animals are dead.
You don’t like being in an elevator with someone who wears too much perfume or just gets a perm, doesn’t it? In vapor inhalation tests, animals are placed in Plexiglas chambers into which vapors of the test product are pumped. Animal welfare organizations have obtained videos of these tests. One of these recordings shows a tiny kitten in agony. Unfortunately, many companies still test their products on animals. Therefore, it is extremely important to never buy products from companies that continue to test their products on animals.
Procter & Gamble conducts the most cruel experiments on testing cosmetics, perfumes and household chemicals. Even pet food companies such as Iams and Eukanuba are conducting unnecessary and monstrous experiments in their cruelty. Hundreds of companies around the world have switched to modern humane drug testing methods. For example, the ingredients of a particular product are tested on a computer, and the product itself is tested on a culture of human eye cells. These firms have taken an oath never to harm any animal again.
Companies whose products have not been tested on animals and which have used humane alternatives put on their products the label “Not tested on animals” (Not tested on animals), “Animal friendly” (The products of these companies may also be marked with signs: a rabbit in a circle or a palm covering a rabbit.If you only buy products from firms that have sworn never to test on animals, you are saying yes to modern, humane and more reliable experiments.At the same time, you are dealing a just blow to cruel, lazy conservative companies in the most vulnerable place. – to a bank account It is also very useful to contact these companies and express your opinion on such an urgent issue as animal experiments.
Manufacturers and retailers always want to know why their products are not in demand and what exactly customers want! The fear of losing revenue will force any firm to make changes. It’s unclear why not all companies have banned animal testing yet. After all, there are many methods of testing for toxicity, in which there is no need to harm anyone. Due to the use of new, improved technology, they are faster, more accurate and cheaper.
Even pharmaceutical companies are gradually introducing alternatives. For example, Pharmagene Laboratories in Royston, England, is the first company in the global pharmaceutical industry to use exclusively human tissue and computer programs in drug development and testing.