What Do Makeup Companies Do To Animals

Animal Testing & Cosmetics

Consumers and manufacturers sometimes ask most the use of animals for testing cosmetics. The following information addresses the legal requirement for cosmetic safety and FDA policy on developing alternative methods.

FDA is responsible for assuring that cosmetics are prophylactic and properly labeled. This mission is achieved through enforcement of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), related statutes, and regulations promulgated under these laws.

The FD&C Act does non specifically require the use of animals in testing cosmetics for safety, nor does the Human activity subject cosmetics to FDA premarket approval. Even so, the agency has consistently advised corrective manufacturers to employ any testing is appropriate and constructive for substantiating the rubber of their products. It remains the responsibility of the manufacturer to substantiate the safe of both ingredients and finished corrective products prior to marketing.

Animal testing by manufacturers seeking to market place new products may be used to establish product safety. In some cases, after considering available alternatives, companies may make up one's mind that brute testing is necessary to assure the safe of a product or ingredient. FDA supports and adheres to the provisions of applicable laws, regulations, and policies governing animal testing, including the Creature Welfare Act and the Public Health Service Policy of Humane Care and Apply of Laboratory Animals. Moreover, in all cases where animal testing is used, FDA advocates that inquiry and testing derive the maximum amount of useful scientific information from the minimum number of animals and employ the nigh humane methods available within the limits of scientific adequacy.

We besides believe that prior to use of animals, consideration should be given to the use of scientifically valid culling methods to whole-animal testing. In 1997, FDA joined with 13 other Federal agencies in forming the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM). ICCVAM and its supporting center, the National Toxicology Plan Interagency Heart for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM), coordinate the evolution, validation, acceptance, and harmonization of alternative toxicological test methods throughout the U.Southward. Federal Government. To learn more, visit the ICCVAM and NICEATM websites.

FDA supports the evolution and apply of alternatives to whole-animal testing as well every bit adherence to the most humane methods bachelor inside the limits of scientific capability when animals are used for testing the safety of cosmetic products. We volition go on to exist a stiff advocate of methodologies for the refinement, reduction, and replacement of animal tests with culling methodologies that exercise non apply the employ of animals.

More Resource from FDA:

"Cruelty Free-Not Tested on Animals" Label Claims
FDA Authority Over Cosmetics

Resources from Other U.South. Regime Agencies:

Brute Welfare Act
National Toxicology Program--Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Culling Examination Methods (NTP-ICCVAM)
Public Health Service Policy on Humane Intendance and Use of Laboratory Animals

Resources from the International Cooperation on Cosmetics Regulation (ICCR):

ICCR reports on nanotechnology, trace contaminants, safety assessment, and alternatives to animal testing: By clicking on this link, you will be leaving the FDA.GOV website and going to the ICCR website, where you will find the reports on these topics.