THEIR VOICE

Photo of Tilly, a grey and white guinea pig

In 2004 the European Union banned testing on animals for cosmetics ingredients and there was even more progress in 2013 when the sale of products that have been tested on animals were also banned. However this practice has not been rolled out across the world and despite this wonderful progress animals continue to live their lives in laboratories being harmed for human vanity. If your product is sold in China then it's tested on animals, whatever the UK packaging might say.

If I told you that your mascara meant that an animal had chemicals dropped into their eyes or your moisturiser was made after a rabbit's fur was shaved and burnt - would you still want to buy it? What if your perfume came into existence because a beagle had substances forced down its throat? Would it still smell so good to you to know that such cruelty was involved?

In reality the majority of people who buy these products wouldn’t do so if they knew the process behind it. And there’s no need for it to happen because alternative, kinder methods already exist. And these methods have better scientific outcomes too.

Cruelty Free International reveal that:

When skin allergy tests were carried out on mice and guinea pigs the predictive human reactions were between 72-74% accurate. But when cell based (non-cruel) methods were used as an alternative scientists were able to accurately predict human reactions up to 85% of the time.
The horrendous Draize skin irritation test in rabbits which is beyond inhumane actually only predicts human skin reactions 60% of the time. But when the same tests were done using reconstituted human skin the results were 86% accurate - which makes perfect sense doesn't it?
Often tests are carried out to see if certain medicines or chemicals can harm unborn babies but animal testing only has a 60% success rate - whereas human stem cell tests are far more accurate giving a 93% success rate.
Live mice are often subjected to cruel tests to check for shellfish toxins but progress seems to be being made in replacing this outdated method with an analytical chemistry solution that has far greater probability results.

Those who work in labs will try to justify their work by citing great scientific breakthroughs via animal testing but if you delve a little deeper the study of humans has had a far greater impact on medical developments.

Scientists will tell you that insulin therapy came from working on the pancreas from dogs but actually it stems much further back from early human observation.
Monkeys are cited as being instrumental in Parkinson's trials but actually brain surgery was carried out on patients with the condition decades before these took place.
Alzheimer's is another condition often credited to be discovered by animal testing but actually Alois Alzheimer first underlined the main features in 1906 by studying brain segments from deceased patients.
We all know that smoking causes cancer but that's not because scientists tested on mice and rats (which they did in huge numbers). Smoking doesn't cause cancer to either of these animals so it was entirely unnecessary.
Animals are cited as being used in trying to work out the cause of stomach ulcers but the solution was found by an Australian doctor named Barry Marshall who discovered that by drinking a culture of Helicobacter pylori bacteria he could cure his symptoms with antibiotics.
What about toothache? Did scientists need to keep hurting rabbits? No they didn't, the discovery that it could be relieved by aspirin came after a German scientist named Felix Hoffman discovered this by accident with no animals involved.
Scientists didn't need to test on monkeys to find out the anaesthetic effect of laughing gas. This was actually discovered when someone accidentally cut their leg while under the influence of the gas. An American dentist named Horace Wells then tried it on himself while having a tooth removed and confirmed its effect.

So, what are the alternative methods that can replace animal testing?

Cell cultures

Interestingly science has moved at such a pace that both human and animal cells can now be grown in labs - with progress even developed to include 3D structures of organs to test on humanely.

The process known as ‘organs on chips’ has been invented whereby devices have been made that mimic the heart, lungs, kidneys and gut so that they can be used instead of animals to study biological and disease processes.

The cell culture process has already helped with cancer research as well as kidney disease and sepsis and it is often used to test chemicals and vaccines alongside new drug developments.

Computer models/AI Machine Learning (In Silico)

3D technology has really swung the doors wide on our ability to utilise computers to model replicas of the human body. Scientists have already modelled the heart, lungs, digestive and musculoskeletal systems as well as ‘growing’ skin. These are now used to carry out virtual experiments that can help make predictions on outcomes and assist with data analysis.

AI has come a long way recently and it is helping to accelerate science. It's of opinion from several critics that 'AI’s predictive capabilities can align expectations with achievable cosmetic results and resolve unrealistic expectations, allowing patients to make informed decisions'. (Grech 2024).

One of the ways that it is vital is its ability to analyse datasets to predict drug reaction and disease outcomes without harming animals.

Human Cell and Tissue Cultures (In Vitro)

Human tissues are extremely important and both healthy and diseased tissues are donated every year from volunteers. Obviously this is a far more transparent and accurate way of testing and the tissue can be also be donated from surgeries when people have cosmetic surgery, skin grafts, biopsies or transplants. 3D printers can also create living tissues using human cells which are then printed on to tissue models. (Taylor 2019)

Developments in this area have included skin and eye models that have been made from reconstituted human skin - which means that rabbits don’t have to go through the agony of the extremely cruel irritation tests that are abundant throughout the world. Post mortem brain tissue has also been revolutionary in this field, leading to advancements in Parkinson’s research, MS developments and understanding brain regeneration.

CRISPR and gene editing in cell lines also allow scientist to create a specific disease in human cells which avoids the need for animal testing.

Volunteer studies/Stem Cell

People can now volunteer safely for testing that is non invasive and involves scanning machines and imaging which can see inside their brain and look for changes and developments. MRI's, PET and CT scans are used in these studies to great effect. There is also a technique called micro-dosing which involves giving small amounts of new drugs to see how the body reacts to them. These are injected and measured by a device called an accelerator mass spectrometer.

Human based clinical trials can also be carried out using organoids which are small simplified versions of organs which are grown from stem cells. These mimic real organs so that more accurate results can be monitored. Ethically sourced stem cells models are also very important in scientific developments and have the potential to change science. It is debated by many how well organoids can truly mimic real organs, but many critics believe that 'because they mimic the genetics, cellular makeup and structure of their source, material organoids made from human stem cells could help model human development and disease' (Shen 2018)

Nutrition, drug addiction and pain can also be monitored and studied to advance medical science with the obvious advantage that humans can explain how they are feeling and if changes are happening to them.

Despite all of these developments statistics from Cruelty Free International indicate that:

192.1m animals were used for in scientific tests in 2015 - this is currently the world's most reliable figure as governments are now being secretive about releasing any information and many are looking for loopholes to justify their actions.
This number comprises of 80m animal experiments plus the millions that are killed for their tissues or bred and not used - so have spent their entire lives in a lab.
The worst offending animal testing countries in the world are China (20.5m) Japan (15m), the US (15.6m), Canada (3.6m), Australia (3.2m), South Korea (3.1m), the UK (2.6m), Brazil (2.2m), Germany (2m) and France (1.9m).
In 2015 207,724 tests using dogs and 158,780 tests using monkeys were carried out.
The European Commission latest reports indicates that 9.3m animal experiments happened across the EU and Norway in 2022 alone. Plus 9.6m animals were bred and killed which brings the 2022 total to18.9m.
France were the worst culprit in Europe in 2022 with 2.1m animals tested and Germany harmed 1.7m.
49% of these tested were deemed to cause moderate or severe suffering to the animals involved.
Despite there being accurate and unharmful alternatives in 2022 there were 3,824 skin irritation tests, 383 eye irritation tests, 33,029 skin sensitisation tests, 19,168 pyrogenicity tests and 152,642 batch potency tests on mice and a large proportion of these were all for the vanity of Botox.

So the moral here is don't believe everything that you are told by 'professionals'. Animals don't have a voice so we have to make sure that we are listening and advocating for them.