Animal Testing Could Soon be Required by Law in the United States
Currently, the United States does not require animal testing for cosmetics and beauty products. Brands are able to be completely cruelty free all the way down to ingredient suppliers without any worry. As a vegan consumer, this is something that I love. Being able to trust so many brands to be free of animal testing and ingredients is an amazing thing! Sadly, this may be changing.
Leaping Bunny notified me last week about a potential change in policy. It’s taken me a while to get the news up because, to be honest, I simply did not want to believe that such a huge step backwards could even be considered. Thinking about what it means for the beauty industry, so many businesses, and so many individuals (both consumers and animals) is heartbreaking to say the least. With so many countries around the world taking steps in the right direction on this, how could the U.S. even consider something that is such a step back?
Animal testing aside, the costs to businesses would be very high if this Act goes into effect. It would likely put many independent and small brands out of business. With so many cruelty free and vegan brands emerging all the time, this would be a major hit to many small business owners.
The Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act of 2013 (SCPCPA) is a legislation that is intended to overhaul the way that cosmetic products are regulated in the U.S.
Recently published research shows that up to 11.5 million animals would be required to test and retest finished products and ingredients for safety, reversing a decades-long decline in animal testing for cosmetics. Altex recently published an online first summary of the Safety Evaluations Under the Proposed US Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act of 2013: Animal Use and Cost Estimates.
The proposed Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act of 2013 calls for a new evaluation program for cosmetic ingredients in the US, with the new assessments initially dependent on expanded animal testing. This paper considers possible testing scenarios under the proposed Act and estimates the number of test animals and cost under each scenario. It focuses on the impact for the first 10 years of testing, the period of greatest impact on animals and costs. The analysis suggests the first 10 years of testing under the Act could evaluate, at most, about 50% of ingredients used in cosmetics. Testing during this period would cost about $ 1.7-$ 9 billion and 1-11.5 million animals. By test year 10, alternative, high-throughput test methods under development are expected to be available, replacing animal testing and allowing rapid evaluation of all ingredients. Given the high cost in dollars and animal lives of the first 10 years for only about half of ingredients, a better choice may be to accelerate development of high-throughput methods. This would allow evaluation of 100% of cosmetic ingredients before year 10 at lower cost and without animal testing.
The rationale for the Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act of 2013 (SCPCPA) is not clearly stated in the act.
While it appears that the ultimate goal is to create better alternatives to animal testing, this is simply a massive step in the wrong direction. It is also in direct contradiction to major leaps forward in the past year such as the bans on animal testing in the EU, India, Israel, and Brazil. Even China, where animal testing is currently required by law, may be adjusting their stance later this year.
What can you do about the SCPCPA act? As a consumer, it’s important to remember that you hold a lot of power in your hands. Your voice is incredibly strong and it’s important to use it! Here are some ways in which you can use your voice on this issue:
- Write to your state Congress and Senate representatives. Let them know your thoughts on the issue, that you oppose this act, and hope they will as well. I was unable to find out who would be voting on this issue, but this is your best bet.
- Oppose the issue on Open Congress. Thank you to Logical Harmony reader Monica for letting me know about this one! You can find the bill on Open Congress and directly send your rep a letter about opposing the bill. Find the Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act of 2013 (SCPCPA) here – http://bit.ly/LBARrO
- Sign the petition started by Logical Harmony on Change.org. This just takes a couple of minutes and can have a big impact if a lot of signatures are received. You can find the petition here – http://chn.ge/1dsKmk0
- Let cruelty free brands know that you support them. This can be done in two ways – supporting them with your words (let them know how much you appreciate their stance on animal testing) and supporting them with your dollars. By only purchasing items that are not tested on animals (and free of animal ingredients!) you are doing your part to show where you want your hard earned money to be spent. The costs to businesses would be very high if this Act goes into effect. It would likely put many independent and small brands out of business. Please don’t let that happen!
- Support organizations that are fighting to spread the message about cruelty free living! Follow these organizations on social networks and share their updates with your readers. They often set up social media and letter writing campaigns – take part in these!
- Support your favorite cruelty free and vegan blogs! These blogs are an easy way to find out about brands to support, but it’s also a great community to connect with. Doing what you can to spread the word about how important it is to use cruelty free options will impact things in a major way. Especially if you start sharing posts with your friends who do not currently buy cruelty free items and get them to start supporting a cruelty free lifestyle.
- Share this post! Help spread awareness and education by Pinning, Tweeting, emailing, and sharing on Facebook. Here’s a tweet that you can easily copy & paste: Animal Testing Could Soon be Required by Law in the United States. Please don’t let this happen! http://bit.ly/1lBKOq1 via @LogicalHarmony
- Share the Leaping Bunny post about this act! Leaping Bunny created a quick and easy to understand breakdown, which can be found here – http://bit.ly/1ayCjr5. Share this on Twitter, Facebook, and email it to people you know.
Leaping Bunny has issued a press release about this topic, which is located below. They also have a great list of quick facts about the Act, which can be found here – http://bit.ly/1ayCjr5. I echo Leaping Bunny’s concerns and am honored that they gave me a heads up on this story so that I could share it with readers here. Leaping Bunny is an organization that I trust, and I appreciate that they have the interest of animals at the core of their values.
Study Finds Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act will result in an increase in animal testing
January 27, 2014
PHILADELPHIA—The Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC), which operates the Leaping Bunny Program in the U.S. and Canada, has serious concerns about the Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act of 2013 (SCPCPA), H.R. 1385, legislation intended to overhaul the way cosmetic products are regulated in the United States. Recently published research shows that up to 11.5 million animals would be required to test and retest finished products and ingredients for safety, reversing a decades-long decline in animal testing for cosmetics.
The article, “Safety Evaluations Under the Proposed US Safe Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Act of 2013: Animal Use and Cost Estimates,” published on January 24, 2014 in ALTEX, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, calculated that passage of the SCPCPA will result in a minimum of one million animals being used in new required testing and will cost companies between $1.7-$9 billion to perform these tests, a dramatic increase over current testing costs and numbers of animals used.
Co-author of the article Jean Knight states, “In reading the Act, I was surprised to see that it would increase animal testing of cosmetics, since this is counter to the worldwide trend to reduce animal testing. The Act’s language can’t be easily understood unless you have some background in toxicology, so this impact was flying under the radar. Many Leaping Bunny certified companies were actually supporting the Act, unaware of the implications for animal testing. The article hopefully brings this information onto the radar so that people can make informed decisions.”
Sue Leary, Chair of the CCIC states, “The authors of this article have done a great service in demonstrating that SCPCPA is a regressive bill. There has been a decisive move in recent years away from cruel and unnecessary animal testing but this bill reverses that. It’s hard to imagine why legislators would want to increase animal testing for things like lipstick and shampoo. Consumers certainly don’t want this and companies don’t either.”
CCIC believes the passage of this act is the wrong approach, and the United States should instead harmonize its cosmetics laws with those of the European Union, Israel, and India, which prohibit the use of animals to test cosmetics and their component ingredients while ensuring consumer safety.
The Leaping Bunny Program offers the most up-to-date list of companies that have committed to no new animal testing throughout their manufacturing process, from ingredients to finished products. The Leaping Bunny Logo is consistently ranked by third parties as the cruelty-free logo that can be trusted the most.
For a one-page summary, click here http://leapingbunny.org/SafeCosmeticsAct.php and to read the article in its entirety, visit the ALTEX website: http://www.altex.ch/Online- first.95.html.Since 1996, the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC) has been connecting compassionate consumers with cruelty-free companies. The CCIC is made up of the following organizations: American Anti- Vivisection Society; Animal Alliance of Canada; Beauty Without Cruelty, USA; Doris Day Animal League; Humane Society of Canada; The Humane Society of the United States; and the New England Anti-Vivisection Society. CCIC’s international partner is the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments. For more information, contact the CCIC at (888) 546-2242 or [email protected].
As always, you can expect updates from Logical Harmony to be posted as they become available.
Thank you so much for posting this! Honestly, I’m not as informed (with regards to social media) as I’d like to be, so this blog is how I find out about important issues like this. Adding to what Tashina said to Coco, I agree. Regardless of whether or not this bill passes, people can never be too informed about animal welfare. I would like to say that something as despicable as the US requiring animal testing could never be possible in this day and age. Unfortunately, with humanity’s history of destruction, anything is possible. Thanks again Tashina, for all the hard work you do to keep us informed!
Thank you for notifying us all about this!
Thank you for writing this article and updating us all on this situation- this is just horrifying! Will try to spread the word!
I don’t remotely support the legislation that is described here. That having been said, I object strongly to the way it is being framed here and at Leaping Bunny, that is, completely divorced of its political context. At the very least, the headline wrongly gives the impression that this legislation is close to being put to a vote or even that it is expected to pass, when in fact it was referred to committee almost a year ago and will likely never even make it to the floor.
You are doing a disservice to your readers by presenting this proposed legislation in such a reactionary, overly simplified way. Rather than recommending that your readers start bombarding their Congressional representatives with letters about a bill that they are not even considering, it would make more sense to a) advertise the people who actually sponsored and cosponsored the bill so that people can write to them and ask them to rescind their support and b) encourage people to write to the chairs of the committees to which the bill was referred and inform them of the disadvantages. But all of this should be framed within the context of how the legislative system works — that is, that many more bills are introduced than ever have a chance of reaching the floor, much less passing.
Again, I completely disagree with the bill and its goals. But I also believe that political literacy is important and that the way this is being talked about is borderline deceptive. People shouldn’t be rushing to twitter to tell all their friends that the US is about to start mandatory testing based on the fact that a bill was introduced almost a year ago and languished in committee ever since!
Thank you for this comment, it’s very well thought out and I agree completely.
Hi Coco,
I really appreciate this comment. It’s clear that you put a lot of thought into it, and I love that you felt comfortable enough to post it here.
Before posting this, I grappled with the issue myself. It being passed to committees doesn’t mean that it will make it past that point and I do realize that the chances are not likely. I also realize that the bill was introduced almost a year ago. In the end, I decided that the fact that it’s still out there was enough reason to share. It’s been out there for a year and I hadn’t heard news about it in some time. Yet, I think it’s important that people become aware that bills like this are still being proposed and the fight against animal testing happens worldwide – not just in China, Brazil, etc.
I can see how you would read the title as potentially misleading. I tried to very carefully pick words that would raise awareness of the issue, but also point out that it’s not going to happen. I repeated this several times through the article – it’s a possibility and something the bill proposes, but it doesn’t mean it is going into effect. In the end, I decided that it was better to raise awareness and encourage people to be proactive about this matter.
Again, I really appreciate your comment. I’m always open to feedback of all forms and will use your tips to better formulate future posts here on Logical Harmony.
This makes me so unspeakably angry. Companies like mine are trying so hard to stay cruelty free. I spent months researching all my ingredient suppliers, and now I could go out of business if this passes. For both moral and financial reasons. This is downright shameful.
I think even if this bill is “dead in the water” it’s still important we let our representatives and Congress know we aren’t going to stand for more animal testing in the US. Even if there is no chance of it passes, we’re still banding together to let EVERYONE know this is not okay, and to even propose it in the first place is infuriating.
Agreed!
The Bill, thankfully, is dead in the water: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr1385
Wow, this is horrid. I can’t believe the US would take such a gigantic step back. Sharing this everywhere.
Horrifying! Sharing on all my social media!
Sharing this all over the place. This is horrible and if it passes I am disgusted with this country.