Council moves to reduce number of animal cosmetics experiments
The Internal Market, Consumer Affairs and Tourism Council agreed on 26 November on an immediate EU-wide ban on the testing of finished cosmetic products on animals, and a ban on all animal experiments for cosmetics from July 2002, if there is a validated alternative. The compromise text seeks to strike a balance between the needs to protect human health, reduce the suffering of animals used in testing and comply with EU international trade obligations. As well as make up, cosmetics in this sense includes healing balms, toothpaste, shampoo, oral hygiene products, deodorants, shaving foam, soap, depilation products and sun creams. Enterprise and Information society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen welcomed the compromise and stated that it should reinforce the EU's leading role in research on alternative testing methods. Current chair of the Internal Market, Consumer Affairs and Tourism Council, Magda Aelvoet regards the agreement as the first step in reducing the number of experiments conducted on animals, and certainly not the last. For a number of years, the EU has adopted the position that as far as possible, safety must be guaranteed by conducting tests not involving the use of animals. Compliance with this has led the cosmetics industry to find a number of alternatives for several tests previously performed using animals. Alternative testing methods are assessed by the European centre for the validation of alternative methods (ECVAM) and at an international level by the Organisation for economic cooperation and development (OECD). The agreement complies with the European Commission's proposals on the Sixth Framework programme (FP6) for research and development (R&D), which, following amendments adopted by Parliament, reads 'in accordance with the Amsterdam protocol on animal protection and welfare, animal experiments must be replaced with alternatives wherever possible. Suffering by animals must be avoided or kept to a minimum.' Although the immediate ban currently relates only to finished cosmetics, testing on cosmetic ingredients and combinations of ingredients will be banned on a case-by-case basis as soon as more of these alternative methods are validated. When no alternative testing method is available, researchers will be required to use a test which causes the least possible suffering to animals. It is thought that this agreement will lead to a reduction in the number of animals used for cosmetics experiments from 30,000 to between 7,000 and 8,000. The proposal agreed by the Council also includes a ban on the sale of cosmetic products tested on animals outside Europe in an attempt to discourage those in the cosmetics sector to relocate outside Europe, where such tests are sometimes still authorised or even obligatory. Minister Aelvoet also secured a commitment to revise the European Directive concerning animal experiments in the chemical industry, which involves a significant number of animals. The minister has been very active in this area for a number of years. In Belgium, she has paved the way for the establishment of ethical commissions and the prohibition of a number of animal experiments. Her work has also led to the recruitment of new laboratory inspectors and the completion of an ongoing study into the ethical acceptability of animal experiments.
Countries
Belgium