Home » Archive 1996
Cosmetics campaign re-starts
When the Council of Ministers approved the 6th amendment to the Cosmetics Directive in June 1993, campaigning against the use of animals testing cosmetics virtually ceased in Europe. The 6th Amendment was hailed as a great victory because it said that after 1 January 1998 "Member States shall prohibit the marketing of cosmetic products which contain ... The Body Shop and the BUAV were given an unpleasant surprise the day after the launch of The Body Shop cosmetic testing campaign in September. The UK Government announced that they had finally decided how to implement another section of the 6th amendment to the Cosmetics Directive which concerned the labelling of cosmetics. The use of 'cruelty-free' and 'not tested on animals' is to be banned on cosmetics in the UK on the grounds that they are misleading. In future the only wording which cosmetic manufacturers will be permitted to use will be 'The product is not tested on animals but contains ingredients which have/may have been'. The BUAV and The Body Shop are taking the UK Government to court to fight the decision. ingredients or combinations of ingredients tested on animals.." Whilst this appeared to be the ban which campaigners had been demanding, the wording of the 6th amendment linked it to the development of alternatives by stating that the implementation of the ban would be delayed by at least two years if "alternative methods of testing ... have not been scientifically validated as offering an equivalent level of protection for the consumer..." There were and still are no validated non-animal alternatives to any of the safety tests listed in the OECD toxicity test guidelines, despite many years work. The development and validation of such alternative tests is not an easy task and there was no likelihood that all the alternatives required could have been developed and validated by 1998. The mechanism by which the delaying of the ban would happen was defined in the 6th amendment to the Cosmetics Directive. It stated that, if the required alternatives were not developed and validated, ".. the Commission shall, by 1 January 1997, submit draft measures to postpone the date of implementation..." These 'draft measures' are expected to be published in December 1996. Some animal protection groups attempted to re-start their cosmetics testing campaigns earlier this year. The German group Bundesverband der Tierversuchsgegner - Menschen fuer Tierrechte (Federal Association Against Vivisection - People for Animal Rights) launched its new cosmetic campaign in April, to co-incide with World Day for Laboratory Animals. However, very little attention was paid to them. The big groups launched their campaign in early September. The first was The Body Shop, who claimed that they had seen 'leaked' European Commission documents which showed that an announcement would be made which might 'delay indefinately' the proposed ban. The Body Shop stated that their campaign was supported by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The UK's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals launched their cosmetics testing campaign two weeks later with large adverts in the press. The RSPCA campaign is quite unusual. Instead of taking the usual approach and blaming the cosmetic 'industry' or scientists themselves, for inflicting great cruelty on animals, the RSPCA advertisements about cosmetic testing say "...the RSPCA would like to see it stopped. Perhaps more suprisingly, so would the cosmetic companies. They are actually involved in developing alternatives, such as tests on cultures of living cells and animal organs rather than live animals". "The problem is European law. Any new form of testing needs to gain acceptance from the European Commission, without it cosmetic companies cannot change their practices even if they want to. Because, of course, products must be shown to be safe for human use." It is unclear whether or not the delaying of the ban can be altered by political pressure. There does not appear to be any point in the process when the European Parliament has to take a decision.