What is cosmetic testing on animals?
Cosmetic testing on animals is when animals such as rabbits, rats, guinea pigs and mice are kept in labs and testers rub samples of cosmetics onto a shaved piece of skin or inject the sample into their eyes. This process is often repeated multiple times and can last a week or in same cases up to a month.
How often does it happen?
It has been estimated that anywhere between 100,000-200,000 animals are killed annually due to cosmetic testing.
Whys does it happen?
Cosmetic companies test their products on animals to see if there are any signs of general illness, or even the birth of cancers. In some cases the animal is injected with a large dose of the cosmetic to see if it is life threatening and if so, what is the dose for death to occur.
How does it affect our animals?
When cosmetic testing is taking place the animal is not given any sort of pain relief or anaesthetic. As you can imagine this would cause great discomfort. These tests can cause swollen eyes, blindness, internal bleeding and organ damage. All of these side-effects can lead to death and if the animal is not killed through the process they are killed after, normally by suffocation, neck breaking or decapitation.
Why is it still done today?
After reading how bad this issue really is, and knowing in todays world we have the technology to test cosmetics in other ways, why does it still happen? Companies want to be improving their products and using new ingredients, however using new ingredients is risky because we don't know if they are safe to be used, so they test the ingredients on the animals.
What can you do about it?
One simple thing you can do is start buying and supporting cosmetic brands that say no to animal testing. If this issue is something you would like to take action against, there are many organisations to donate to and support bringing an end to cosmetic testing on animals.
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