Animal Testing

Word Count: 748

Animal Testing

Every year millions of animals suffer and die in painful tests; in order to determine the safety of make-up products. Products like eye shadow and soap are tested on rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, dogs, and many other animals; despite the fact that the test results do not help prevent or treat human illness or injury. Cosmetics are not required to be experimented on animals, and since non-animal alternatives exist, it is difficult to understand why some companies still choose to conduct these stupid, harmful and unnecessary tests. Cosmetic companies kill millions of animals every year just to put a few more dollars into their companies. The companies who perform these tests claim that they establish the safety of both the products and their components. However, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates cosmetic products, does not require this animal testing. Some of the tests used on animals are eye, toxicity, and skin irritant tests.

One test researchers do on Animals is the eye irritant test. In eye irritant tests, a liquid, flake, granule, or powdered material is placed directly into the eyes of rabbits. The animals are often immobilized in cages from which only their heads may show. During the tests, rabbits' eyelids are usually held open with clips. Many animals break their necks while restrained, attempting to escape from the pain. They do not receive anesthesia during the tests, therefore they feel everything and go through

unbearable pain. After placing the irritants into the rabbits' eyes, scientists record the damage to the eye tissue at specific intervals over a period of seventy-two hours. The tests sometimes can last anywhere from seven, to eighteen days. Usually the side effects from these experiments include swollen eyelids, ulceration, bleeding, swollen irises, massive deterioration, and blindness.

Toxicity tests, otherwise known as lethal dose or poisoning tests, record the amount of a material that will kill a percentage, sometimes even up to one-hundred percent, of a group of lab animals. In these tests, a liquid is forced into the animals' stomach linings, and through holes slit in their throats. Scientists observe the animals reactions that may result in convulsions, severe asthma attacks, malnutrition, rashes, boils, and bleeding from facial features. This test was developed in 1927 and the testing continues until at least fifty percent of the animals die. Like eye irritant tests, lethal dose tests are unreliable and have too many variables to have an accurate result.

Alternatives to cosmetic testing are far less expensive and more accurate. Animals obviously have different biological systems