For a long time, cosmetic testing on animals has been a highly controversial topic. In the eyes of someone as passionate about animals as myself, this so called "controversy" should never have even raised a single question among anyone. While it is unfortunate that others feel differently about the subject, it is the harsh truth. Being named "biggest animal lover" in high school, and currently aspiring to be a veterinarian, it becomes very evident that this topic is a passion of mine. That being said, another passion of mine is the people that I surround myself with in my life. One may be confused as to how these two are related at all, but there's actually a clear connection between the two. There are so many fatal diseases that individuals suffer from day in and day out and I have the highest amount of empathy for them. However, this does not condone scientists to use animals as their test trial, as they are completely unconcerned about the morality of this issue. More than just this, there are also economic benefits to finding alternatives for animal testing since the tests can be extremely costly to the federal government. Evidently, advancements in cosmetic testing as well as in medicine have been, and are continuing to be made, but there is absolutely no reason why this process needs to include animals. There is a plethora of other ethical ways which treatments and testing can be done without harming animals. Although some may argue that testing on animals is better when compared to testing on humans, they are of equal value in my eyes. There should be no debate on the cosmetic testing of animals and a law should simply be put in place to ban this practice for obvious ethical reasons. By making cosmetic animal testing illegal, companies will be encouraged to implore alternative testing procedures and will simultaneously saving money. 

The root of this controversy lies at the very beginning with the origin of medicine.  This leads us all the way back to 6th-5th century BCE in ancient Greece where physicians would perform animal experiments for anatomical studies.  The Greeks saw no problem with such practice as "the supposed likeliness of humans to their anthropomorphic deities granted them a higher ranking in the scala naturae ("the chain of being"), a strict hierarchy where all living and non-living natural things -- from minerals to the gods -- were ranked according to their proximity to the divine." (Franco 238).  Essentially, since humans were deemed a higher spot on the "chain of being" the use of animals in experimentation raised no questions regarding moral beliefs (Franco 238). Since no questions were raised regarding the ethics of it then, many people have continued to have a similar mentality. Admittedly, this practice proved extremely beneficial at the time and animal research has helped humans learn a great deal about their own anatomy and physiology. For example, moving forward to 1937, a pharmaceutical company created a drug in order to treat the symptoms of strep throat with a chemical called diethylene glycol (DEG) as a solvent.  To the chemists' surprise, this chemical proved to be extremely poisonous to humans.  Raspberry flavoring was added to the drug and put on the market under the product name Elixir Sulfanilamide.  This drug, originally meant to help those who suffered from strep throat, ended up taking many peoples lives due to the unknown poisonous drug. In response to this and to other similar cases the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was passed, requiring proof of safety before the product could be sold (Scutti).  In more recent years, it has been discovered that animal testing has contributed to many medical milestones such as the creation of penicillin, blood transfusions, kidney transplants, and so much more.  Largely, this is the reason that proponents of animal testing convey such arguments, but even such massive innovations do not make this practice moral by any means. 

In a similar light, with this idea came the issue of animal testing in the cosmetic industry, of which is what needs to be focused on. More recently, there have been innovations to help resolve the issue of cosmetic animal testing, but there is still quite a long way to go. Many people who do not pay attention or are not involved with learning these issues simply do not know the facts.   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 and 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, or often times even death.  In fact, according to PETA, a minimum of thirteen tests are used when testing a single product on up to 5,652 animals. The Draize test has been a common test among the industry of cosmetic testing as of 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). This specifically, is where a large part of this issue lies. Not only should animals not be used for testing in the first place, but euthanizing them regardless of whether or not they were even subject to chemicals or testing is unquestionably immoral. 

Setting laws prohibiting any and all cosmetic testing on animals would force companies to explore alternative solutions. Contrary to popular belief, some of these alternative solutions have already been discovered. Millions of animals lives are taken each year which is unnecessary due to the plethora of alternative solutions. Although scientists have only scratched the surface of the issues that need to be addressed, but nonetheless alternatives have been discovered and implemented in some cases.  In fact, Scientists N. Ranganatha and I.J Kuppast identified three "R"s in their review on alternatives to animal testing methods in drug development. These alternatives are built on the basis of replacement, reduction, and refinement (Scientific American). This approach is largely popular with those like myself, who want to limit the use of cosmetic animal testing. The first R, replacement, essentially stands for the idea of replacing the current method with any other method that did not harm animals. Similarly, reduction represents the minimal amount of animals being used and refinement is regarding efforts to refine the animal to receive the minimum amount of pain and suffering. If there were an increase in the amount of companies with this same commitment to finding alternatives for animal testing, then this issue will likely be solved sooner than later. Evidently, various companies have begun their efforts in taking advantage of other methods of testing, but definitely not enough to make a large difference. 

Although there are many reasons why companies may shy away from these alternatives, one of the most common is the monetary factor.  However, what these organizations are failing to recognize is that non-animal testing is actually significantly more cost effective. From an economical view point, animal testing is extremely costly. In fact, it may come as a surprise to many that a simple action like paying taxes is an indirect way of showing support for animal testing. Obviously, people need to pay their taxes so they are going to, but more importantly they should look into becoming more aware of what they are funding. Unfortunately, a large portion of tax payers are blatantly unaware of what their tax dollars are actually being spent on. According to PETA, 12 billion dollars of tax payer's money is wasted on animal testing. For those who may not be phased by the moral side of the controversy of cosmetic testing on animals, they may, at the very least, begin to become concerned when their own money is on the table. The National Institutes of Health spent an estimated 1.7 million dollars on it's own, just inducing depression in baby monkeys (PETA). Although this is not physically harmful, if this psychological harm was done to a human, it is arguable that people would be a much larger problem with this. Additionally, while some of these statistics may be more applicable to animal testing on a larger, more generalized scale, cosmetic animal testing is certainly no exception to this. According to the Humane Society International, some studies can take years, causing extremely high expenses and horrible treatment for an unknown amount of animals. 

Realistically, the simplest alternative of all is choosing from the hundreds of thousands of ingredients that have already been established as safe (Creating a Cruelty-Free World).  All ingredients used in products up to the present have been previously approved, but when creating "new and improved" products is where companies are often required to have products tested.  Most of the time companies are unlikely to break the norm and switch from animal testing simply because they are used to their current policy for testing products. In fact, "toxicologists often mention feeling more comfortable basing their judgments on methods with historical context and data than on data from new and emerging methods" according to the 2016 National Anti- Vivisection Society. Another possible reason for this fear for change is that companies may be worried that altering the testing method will alter their products and consequently upset loyal customers or supporters. Personally, it seems that the organization is acting slightly selfish by doing this. If only companies thought about the harm treatments animals were undergoing during what may seem like a simple decision to keep their current testing policy, one can only hope they would decide differently.  Also, there are plenty of approved ingredients that can be used in order to create new cosmetics.

According to the Human Society International, there are over 600 cosmetic companies or "beauty brands" that are considered to be cruelty-free today (Creating a Cruelty-Free World), which is definitely an advancement. These companies are able to achieve this by neither conducting nor commissioning new animal testing. They only make use of ingredients that human safety can be established without actually integrating animals into their testing process. Additionally, they avoid 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, but largely these solutions need to become more widespread and recognized as necessary across the board. One example of companies succeeding in this is the use of artificial tissue. Although it may sound illegitimate, skin irritation and corrosion can accurately be predicted by using artificial tissue and reconstructed skin to test new products on, instead of the alternative 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 to help with 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).  Evidently, this is a huge innovation and will hopefully aid in urging other companies to consider this method. As stated before, part of the issue with getting organization's to switch to non animal testing is simply their fear for change or failure. Hartung's team is currently working to assess 12 eye irritation tests, with high hopes to replace the most the Draize test which is currently very harmful to animals.  One of the potential tests he's hoping to explore includes 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).  Adding to that, another alternative suggestion is called the test tube method. This method is able to distinguish toxic from non-toxic cosmetic ingredients without the use of animals (Creating a Cruelty-Free World). 

Evidently, there are a multitude of ways scientists and cosmetic companies can perform the necessary testing without harming animals. The moral side, although is a compelling argument in my eyes, is realistically only acts as a small piece of a larger puzzle for many. But, the reality is that there are so many drawbacks to animal testing, most that are unfortunately unknown by the average person.  In some cases, advocates of animal testing in different companies hesitate to explore alternative methods simply because of their own fear for change. If the federal government outlawed cosmetic testing on animals, these companies would no have the option of resisting to explore alternative methods. Moreover, a copious amount of money is being wasted on this issue every single day across the country.  Through this lens, the excessive argumentation and debate surrounding the topic of cosmetic testing on animals should be non-existent. 

