Cosmetic Animal Testing Statistics

Some of these cosmetic animal testing statistics may surprise you and may change the way you shop for skin care products.

Why should you select cosmetic and skin care products that aren’t tested on animals before they’re released to human consumers? You may think that those testing processes are necessary to ensure product safety for you and the people you love, but there are alternative testing methods available to companies today. It’s a matter of convincing more manufacturers that embracing those new methods is worthwhile, and you can do that by voting with your money. Consumer behaviors are the biggest predictor of future manufacturer behaviors.

To give you even more reason to stick with products that are friendly to animals, consider these statistics and facts regarding cosmetic animal testing:

• In 2002, more than three million experiments in the UK involved testing on animals. If you consider the number of experiments utilizing animals around the world, that number is staggering.
• A single country can use upwards of two million mice in just one year. Again, think about the number used in countries around the world to see the alarming number of mice tortured for the production of cosmetics and other products each year.
• When one country brags about reducing animal testing for product development, there are many others increasing their use of animals for testing. For instance, Ireland reduced the number of animals used for testing in 2005, but Spain and Sweden nearly doubled animal testing in the same year.
• Even though consumer awareness of animal testing has increased in recent years, some countries are now increasing their use of testing animals after years of cutting down. It’s time for consumers to increase demands for natural products that are kind to animals so that manufacturers have to find more suitable ways to test their products.
• One facility completing research on animals can kill more than 70,000 animals in a single year. Those facilities are located all over the world, leading to never-ending suffering for mice, monkeys and other favored testing animals.
• Death isn’t the only fate test animals face. They are often burned and crippled as a result of testing practices. Some are even crippled and live in pain until they are put to death. Many other forms of abuse are endured as well, and it all happens so that consumers can purchase products with unnatural ingredients.
• Most statistics regarding the number of animals used for product testing are inaccurate. Why? It comes down to inaccurate reporting of animals from testing facilities. Some statistics estimate that up to 90% of all animals actually used are never reported. Perhaps you should double every statistic you read to get a more accurate reflection of how many animals manufacturers kill every year in the name of making money.

Here’s the most alarming statistic regarding animal testing: a product proven safe through animal studies isn’t guaranteed to be safe for human use. It’s estimated that more than 90% of experimental drugs that pass animal testing are later proven unsafe and ineffective for humans. This is downright scary when you realize that many cosmetics and skin care products are never tested on humans. They test on animals and assume the same results would be achieved in human trials, but those human tests aren’t always completed or are completed only after dangerous side effects are experienced by consumers.

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