Animal testing by cosmetic companies is becoming a thing of the past in the United States, so it might shock you that the government is still forcing taxpayers to pay for cruel, ineffective, and expensive animal tests on cosmetics in government laboratories.
Conservative taxpayer watchdog group White Coat Waste Project (WCW) recently found that the National Toxicology Program has cosmetics and their ingredients on a long list of compounds slated for taxpayer-funded government animal tests.
A new report released by WCW in cooperation with Congressman Matt Gaetz outlines how, in dozens of ongoing and planned tests, the government spends money to force-feed mice and rats massive doses—sometimes 10,000 times greater than anything actually humans are ever exposed to—of cosmetic color additives, fragrance ingredients, hair-dye ingredients, and antibacterial ingredients in a misguided attempt to test their safety. The painful and deadly tests also include smearing such ingredients onto the animals’ skin to observe what doses irritate or burn them.
Not only are these tests cruel, they’re also—as the government has repeatedly acknowledged—an inefficient use of time and resources. Some of the individual tests for each compound can take between three years and five years to complete, use more than 800 animals, and cost taxpayers as much as $4 million. Government researchers have noted that these years-long, multi-million-dollar animal tests, “frequently are criticized because rodents are perceived as too biologically different from humans and therefore poor models for assessing cancer risks.”
Yet, the government appears to have an unhealthy obsession with perpetuating wasteful animal testing that neither the industry, nor society at large, either wants or needs.
Cosmetics companies discarded animal testing and invested in more efficient non-animal testing tools because the market demanded it. A Nielsen study found that cruelty-free labeling on cosmetics is the single most important factor for consumers.
Likewise, taxpayers don’t want to pay for government animal testing. A March 2017 Lincoln Park Strategies national poll of 1,000 voters found that 75 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of Democrats believe federal agencies should be required to move away from animal testing and instead use more cost-efficient, humane, and accurate testing methods.
But the government has been slow to change. As cosmetics companies have abandoned animal tests, it’s now entirely possible that the federal government kills more animals to test cosmetics than all of the top U.S. cosmetics companies combined. L’Oréal, for instance, states on its website that it “does not test any of its products or any of its ingredients on animals and has been at the forefront of alternative methods for over 30 years.” On the other hand, the government is still actively planning and conducting taxpayer-funded tests in which hundreds of animals are force-fed natural additives used in perfume and skin care products.
