For as long as I can remember, I have always been passionate about animals.  I was voted "Biggest Animal Lover" in high school and am now an aspiring veterinarian.  Whatever kind of animal it may be--a dog, a bunny, a snake, you name it--chances are I love it.  Which brings me to the topic of animal testing and whether or not it is really necessary.  I'm interested in this research question not only out of the love I have for animals, but also for the love I have for people suffering from fatal diseases with no known cure.  This questions affects me because I do not believe it is ethical or moral to harm and kill animals in order to invent a new and improved kind of lip balm or window cleaner.  It affects me because I have suffered the loss of loved ones that have passed away because of cancer and if I could trade those lives lost for the lives of rats, I would.  I share a passion for animals as well as a passion for advancement in medicine, which brings me to a conclusion: Cosmetic testing on animals should be illegal as it is immoral, unnecessary as it has slim to no benefits for humans. 

Animal testing can be drawn back to the very beginning of medicine.  It can be dated back to 6th-5th century BCE in ancient Greece, as physicians would perform animal experiments for anatomical studies (Franco).  Because humans were deemed a higher spot on the "chain of being" the use of animals in experimentation raised no questions regarding moral beliefs (Franco).  Animal research helped humans learn a great deal about their own anatomy, physiology, and more.  Fast forward to 1937 a pharmaceutical company created a drug in order to treat strep symptoms, they used a chemical called diethylene glycol (DEG) as a solvent.  To the chemists' surprise, DEG is actually poisonous to humans.  Raspberry flavoring was added to the drug and put on the market under the product name Elixir Sulfanilamide.  The poisonous drug then took the lives of many people looking for a cure to a sore throat.  In response to this and other similar cases the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was passed, requiring proof of safety before the product can be sold (Scutti).  In more recent years, animal testing has contributed to many medical milestones such as the creation of penicillin, blood transfusions, kidney transplants, and so much more.  These large medical advances that save sick peoples' lives are what make animal testing worth it.  

On the other hand, this has led to the issue of animal testing in the cosmetic industry.  Many major cosmetic companies follow a series of tests before the release of a new product which can include bath products such as shampoo and body wash, cosmetics such as lipstick and mascara.  Millions of animals undergo these experiments each year in order to test the product for skin irritation, eye irritation, and toxicity levels.  When undergoing these tests animals are rarely given pain medicine and are subject to blindness, seizures, paralysis, and often times death.  A minimum of thirteen tests are used when testing a product and can use up to 5,652 animals (PETA).  The Draize test has been a common test used in cosmetic testing that dates back to the 1940s.  According to the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) the test tends to cause "extreme discomfort and pain", as rabbits are restrained and their eyelids are held open with clips for long periods of time in order to keep the test solutions in their eyes (Scientific American).  NAVS also contends that the "results of non-animal tests tend to be more consistent and often better predictors" for human reactions than animal tests (Scientific American).  If the animals do not die after being tested they are, more often than not, killed shortly after (PETA).  

These millions of lives being taken each year due to cosmetic testing are not at all necessary.  There are several alternatives to animal testing in the cosmetic industry that many companies have started taking advantage of, but not enough.  There are over 600 cosmetic companies or "beauty brands" that are considered to be cruelty-free (Creating a Cruelty-Free World).  These companies are able to do so by neither conducting nor commissioning new animal testing, only using new ingredients when human safety can be established without animal testing, and not selling cosmetic products in countries that require animal testing, such as China (Creating a Cruelty-Free World).  There are several ways companies are able to carry out non-animal safety testing.  Skin irritation and corrosion can be predicted by using artificial tissue and reconstructed skin to test new products on, instead of harming thousands of rabbits per product.  Episkin and SkinEthic, both owned by L'Oreal, are companies that are set on developing and manufacturing a wide range of human tissues, creating reconstructed skin (Carvajal).  Episkin is able to predict the possibility of irritation of chemical products as an overall safety evaluation program for new and existing products.  Episkin is the one and only model that has been accepted for full replacement of animal testing in regards to skin irritation and skin corrosion (About Episkin).  Episkin is used to test Cosmetics by smothering the artificial skin with the product, the skin is checked by adding a yellow chemical which then turns blue against living tissue, and then checked again with a second molecule for irritation (Carvajal).  Thomas Hartung, the head of the European Center for the Validation of Alternative Methods was thrilled about the approved Episkin alternative, "We have finally succeeded in showing that artificial skin can fully replace rabbit testing" (Carvajal).  His team is now assessing 12 eye irritation tests, in hopes to replace the harmful Draize test.  One of the potential tests include using the eyes of cows and chickens killed in slaughter houses in order to test for eye irritation (Carvajal).  The testing strategies are combined with skin metabolism and bioavailability data as well as exposure consideration, this allows an establishment of data integration to approach non-animal testing for skin sensitization (Toxicology in Vitro).  Another alternative suggested is called the test tube method that can distinguish toxic from non-toxic cosmetic ingredients without the use of animals (Creating a Cruelty-Free World). 

The simplest alternative of all is choosing from the hundreds of thousands ingredients that have already been established as safe (Creating a Cruelty-Free World).  All ingredients used in products up to present have been previously approved, but when creating "new and improved" products, companies are required to have products tested.  However, many of these companies resort to animal testing instead of non-animal testing because they are opposed to changing their policies.  There are plenty of approved ingredients that can be used in order to create new cosmetics.

