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Yuchen Yang

Professor McClure

Writing 39C (HCP final draft)

May.8.2018

Introduction

Currently, animal testing is an argumentative topic in the world. Animal testing can be

divided into diverse parts. For example, some of the testing is for medical and some of them is

for cosmetics. The aim of animal testing is to benefit human beings. However, in fact, it tortures

animals is a nonhuman way. The cruelty event still happens nowadays. This paper will mainly

focus on animal testing on cosmetics—The Driaze Eye Test by historical researches and how

that action concerns animal rights in popular and academic resources. There are several academic

researches about this action. Kirk R. Wilhelmus, MD, MPH, a professor of ophthalmology in

Huston concludes The Draize Eye Test(1). He talks about the issue of Draize Test and the

historical events concern about this test in the world. The supporter of Draize Test argues that the

Draize Test benefits humans from damaging their eyes of cosmetics. Testing on animals

guarantees the safety of human beings using cosmetics. The argument of Draize Test on rabbits

changed from year to year, people changed many ways to test chemicals on rabbits. Indeed, it is

a cruelty to animals (para 2). Many animal protectors argue that the Draize Test should be

banned. Many countries in Europe have been banned animal testing from several years. The

Draize Eye Test is an ethical issue in the world. The Draize Eye Test places on live rabbits’ eyes.

The purpose of this test is to observe the duration of irritancy on rabbits, possible resolutions and

degree of injuries. Experimenters will stop testing when the chemicals damages rabbits’ eyes.

However, it depends on the different substance using in the test because of the observance in the
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test. This topic is a moral concern that people most care about. Objectively, the nonhuman action

to harm animals is confrontational on the earth.

Draize Eye Test

Animal testing on cosmetics is a popular project that is used for many years, which is a

systematic and detailed test. The range of animal testing on cosmetics are vary from species such

as rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats and mice. Even though animal testing is an argumentative

project, it has been used for 70 years as a traditional strategy. Currently, companies continued to

do animal testing because they are searching for new “ingredient” of cosmetics and new product

of cosmetics. The Draize eye test was developed by two American scientists John H. Draize and

Jacob M. Spines in 1944 who is a Food and Drug Administration toxicologists. The aim of this

experiment is to test the degree of irritancy of chemical on rabbits to determine the when it uses

on humans. Draize eye test mainly puts 0.5ml or of test substance in rabbits’ one eye and the

other eye operates as a control for a fourteen-day process. The subjects are restricted, inhibiting

them from the natural response before rising it out and observes the three tissues of the eye,

cornea, conjunctiva, and iris. Their eyes are evaluated very one hour at 24-hour intervals up to 14

days. This test applied on rabbits’ eyes to determine whether they show symptom of redness,

bleeding, ulcers, blindness, or other symptom of injury. After this test, if animals get the

permanent damage on their skin or eyes, they will be euthanized. Besides, if the experiment does

not create the permanent damage on animals, they may be re-used for next testing.

The policies

Due to the confrontational arguments in ethical, more and more countries start to solve

the problems by passing a policy to prohibit any animal testing in countries, such as EU. In 2014,

EU has passed a proposal to ban animal testing in any companies (Brussels para 2). On March
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11, a 10-year plan to ban all testing of cosmetics on animals was finally completed. The

statement ban begin to be applied in 2004 and now extends to all cosmetics products

manufactured and marketed in the EU. Tonio Borg, a European Commissioner in Health &

Consumer Policy states that no more cosmetic animal testing in European is allowed, since the

development of cosmetics does not worthwhile on sacrificing animals (para 3). From the source

called Meat mislabelling – European Commission’s five-point plan enacted across Europe

written by Brian Kilgallen, concludes the policy that was passed in EU is complex because

prohibiting the animal testing on cosmetics (1). Humane Society International supported the

EU’s decision to help stopping animals’ suffering because they are searching more solutions to

instead Draize Eye Test. On the other hand, the cosmetics industry has long voiced its concerns,

with Cosmetics Europe (‘the voice of Europe’s E70bn cosmetics industry’) issuing a press

release saying: “the ban ignores the reality that science is not yet ready to bridge existing

knowledge gaps and that nonanimal alternatives cannot address all ingredient safety questions”.

Industry also claims that the ban will act as a brake on innovation in the EU while achieving little

to improve global animal welfare.

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Figure1, the number of animal uses on animal testing cosmetics in the UK, Germany, the

Netherlands, and Switzerland from 1989-2003.

Animal Rights and welfare

Animal testing on cosmetics involves the issues of animal welfare and animal rights.

Some countries pay attention to the issues and have plans to solve the issues. Recently, European

started to ban animal testing on cosmetics through European commission. Tonio Borg, One

European Commissioner is responsible for Health & Consumer Policy, claims “Today's entry

into force of the full marketing ban gives an important signal on the value that Europe attaches to

animal welfare. The Commission is committed to continue supporting the development of

alternative methods and to engage with third countries to follow our European approach. This is

a great opportunity for Europe to set an example of responsible innovation in cosmetics without

any compromise on consumer safety” (Brussel, para3). One of the most popular criticize of

Draize test is that the structure of rabbits’ eyes is much different from human beings’. Since

rabbits produce less tears, the irritation can last for a long time in rabbits’ eye and cause more
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irritations. Thus, it makes the results of irritation test is not correct. More and more resources are

finding more strategies to replace draize eye test on rabbits.

Animal testing is a confrontational argument from year to year, which is been argued by

people because animal experiments divest the freedom of animal and hurts animals without

permissions. The definition of animal rights could be defined as “The term animal experiment is

used beyond biological and semantic specificity. Without a given frame an animal experiment

would be understood as any experimental procedure carried out on an organism from the

zoological (taxonomic) category Animalia” (Kular,113). There are different levels at which

ethics committees function. In some countries, like the USA, the committees are directly

connected to the institution at which the animal experiments are undertaken (so-called IACUCS,

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees), in other places they work at the local, regional

and/or national level. Kular claims that “There are also ethics committees employed by funding

bodies, e.g. the European Commission has installed ethics panels to decide on the ethical

acceptability of research proposals submitted for funding, and these panels, inter alia, also look

at specific animal experimentation issues” (117). The final decision to authorize, and therefore

officiallylegitimate on ethical grounds, an animal experiment is mostly taken by a licensing

authority which oftentimes bases this decision on the advice of an ethics committee.
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Works cited

Kolar, Roman. “Animal Experimentation.” Science and Engineering Ethics, vol. 12, no. 1, 2006,

pp. 111–122., doi:10.1007/s11948-006-0011-1.

Illing, Paul. “General Overview of the Safety Evaluation of Chemicals.” Issues in Environmental

Science and Technology Alternatives To Animal Testing, pp.127.,doi:10.1039/9781847552457

00001.

Mcnamee, Pauline, et al. “A Tiered Approach to the Use of Alternatives to Animal Testing for the

Safety Assessment of Cosmetics: Eye Irritation.” Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology,

vol.54, no. 2, 2009, pp. 197–209., doi:10.1016/ j.yrtph. 2009.04.004.

“Animals in Science / Research.” What Is the Draize Test? www.neavs.org/research/what-is- the-

draize-test.

“About Cosmetics Animal Testing.” Humane Society International,

www.hsi.org/issues/becrueltyfree/facts/about_cosmetics_animal_testing.html.
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