Choose Cruelty Free Goes Global!

Choose Cruelty Free (CCF - no testing on animals) goes global! Yay – at last, now there’s a campaign to end animal testing of cosmetics formulations. And needless to say the individual ingredients used in producing cosmetics. Humane Society International (HSI) have just launched a campaign aimed at obtaining legislation in every country to ban cruel testing on animals in the cosmetics industry.

Animal testing of cosmetics is banned in the European Union (EU) however in Australia we don’t have federal legislation to stop animal testing of cosmetics. While we have some regulations in place, most of the big cosmetics brands that fill the shelves of department stores are largely imported and unregulated regarding animal testing.

Many governments are dragging their heels with legislation to ensure non-animal safety tests replace the use of animals. Why? It’s a tough one for governments. Large cosmetics companies wield a lot of power because they employ lots of people and pay lots of company tax, two things critical to any and every government’s success. Unfortunately the cosmetics companies impacted by such legislation aren’t keen to have their plans for current product distribution and future product development interfered with by new legislation.

And because most large companies are driven by profit they don’t want their product distribution or product development plans impacted. That’s someone’s bonus on the line, or more to the point, several people’s bonuses on the line. In a recent article published by Choose Cruelty Free they even go so far as to say “the majority of large companies are driven by profit, so much so they may forget to tell the truth”!!!!!

Since when has generating a profit and telling the truth about business operations been bound together? You tell the truth about what you do and you make the profits you make….don’t you? Apparently not! The article goes on to say that companies such as Avon, Estee Lauder and Mary Kay who have promoted their products as not being tested on animals to boost sales in countries like Australia have recently been “outed” as they were paying for Draize eye and skin tests to be done in Chinese government laboratories, as required by the country’s State Food and Drug Administration, to cash in on the $15 million Chinese cosmetics market.

What a shame, particularly when there are non animal testing alternatives that have been developed and accepted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operations and Development (OECD). So why do companies and governments still insist on using animal testing and not legislating against animal testing? For more information you can contact admin@choosecrueltyfree.org.au or visit their website at www.hsi.org