If the issue were simple, animal experimentation might never have become so controversial.
Each year in the United States an estimated 20-70 million animals-from cats, dogs and primates, to rabbits, rats and mice-suffer and die in the name of research. Animal tests for the safety of cosmetics, household products and chemicals are the least justifiable. Animals have doses of shampoo, hair spray, and deodorant dripped into their eyes or applied to bare skin in attempts to measure eye and skin irritancy levels. Other are force-fed massive quantities of toxic materials such as bleach or soap, in a hit-and-miss attempt to measure levels of toxicity. Since 1938, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has required that each ingredient in a cosmetic be "adequately substantiated for safety" prior to being made available to the consumer. However, neither the FDA nor the Consumer Product Safety Commission ( a regulatory agency that oversees product safety, consumer complaints, etc.) requires firms to conduct animal testing of any cosmetic product. Cosmetic companies use animal tests to insure themselves against possible consumer lawsuits. If sued for liability, they can protect themselves by arguing that the cosmetic was "adequately tested for safety" with tests standard in the cosmetic industry. How placing a piece of lipstick in the eye of a rabbit to determine it safety to the consumer boggles my mind. If someone placed a piece of lipstick in my eye, I do believe it would irritate my eye also. How in the name of God does this test prove it is safe for the consumer? I don't believe lipstick is gong to be used in the eye area, unless you are a mindless idiot.
The Draize Eye-Irritancy Test was designed to assess a substance's potential harmfulness to human eyes based on its effects on rabbits' eyes. This test was developed in the early 1940s by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This test is typically performed on six rabbits per substance tested.
