Stop Cosmetic Animal Testing

March 28, 2006

Cosmetic Testing is not only inhumane but inaccurate. Cosmetic Tests are done on small animals such as Rabbits, Mice, and Guinea Pigs. Many tests are preformed on these animals. Two of the main Cosmetic tests preformed are Eye and Skin irritancy tests.

In Skin irritancy tests they test whether a substance irritates the skin. Sections of the animals' backs are shaved and sometimes abraded (cut). The substance is applied to the skin and covered with gauze patches, usually for 4 hours. Researchers then look for signs of redness, inflammation, weeping or scabs to determine how irritating the substance is. An irritating product can make the skin red raw, which is obviously very painful.

Rabbits are usually used for this test. At the end of the test they are killed.

The Draize Eye Irritancy Test is the traditional method for testing irritation and damage to the eye is the Draize test. The test substance is placed in the eyes of conscious rabbits, who are either held in stocks or have plastic collars around their neck so that they can't rub their eyes with their paws.

The rabbits are observed for 3 days, although if there is damage to the eye they may be observed for up to 21 days to see how long it takes for the injury to heal. Researchers look for signs of redness, swelling, discharge and ulceration to determine how irritating the substance is. The rabbits are killed at the end of the test.

The outer layer of the eye, the cornea, is one of the most sensitive tissues in the body. It is richly supplied with nerve endings, which is why any irritation or damage is extremely painful. Everyone knows how uncomfortable it is to get something like shampoo or onion in the eye. We quickly wash it out.

In comparison, the suffering of rabbits is greater, firstly because some the substances tested are more irritating, and secondly because the rabbits can't wash their eyes.

Eye irritancy tests can be inaccurate though. Here are the reasons why:
-Rabbits have a third eyelid
-rabbits produce less tear fluid to wash away irritants
-rabbits have a more alkaline eye
-rabbits have a thinner cornea

So if companies were smart enough they would take all these things into consideration. Because Rabbits have so many things different from humans that their tests wouldn't show how exactly it would affect a human.