UK Bans Household Product Tests on Animals
But Royal SPCA calls it small potatoes
The U.K. government has announced a ban on the testing of household products, from air fresheners to toilet bowl cleaners on animals.
While cosmetics have not been tested on animals in the U.K. since 1998, rats, guinea pigs and dogs have all been the routine victims of household products. Typically, the products are put in their eyes, on their skin or down their throats to determine how much it takes to kill the animal.
The new law will put a stop to these particular tests. (In fact, several retailers, including the big Marks & Spencer chain, no longer sell products that are tested on animals.)
But the Royal SPCA, the nation’s largest animal welfare organization, is not hugely impressed.
“In reality this will have very little impact and is essentially mere window dressing,” said the RSPCA’s senior scientist Barney Reed. “This move will impress no one unless it is followed by more substantial progress in other areas of safety testing where tens of thousands of animals continue to suffer.”
That’s because last year, other medical and scientific tests reached a 25-year high.
Read more at the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and the Daily Mirror.
What do you say? More animals are subjected to medical and scientific testing in the United States than anywhere else in the world. What’s your view on this? Let us know in a comment or on Facebook.
What you can do: Support the New England Anti-Vivisection Society, the American Vivisection Society or the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine.