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Scientist criticises killing of hundreds of animals

P&G routinely harm and kill thousands of animals in the development of trivial products. Most tests are done in secret, but a recently published experiment [1] provides a rare insight into the suffering and death inflicted on animals at their Cincinnati laboratories.

It reveals how P&G scientists force-fed and killed almost 100 pregnant rats, and decapitated hundreds of their full-term foetuses, to test massive doses of a chemical preservative, called butylparaben, which is found in the P&G brands 'Max Factor' cosmetics and 'Clairol' hair products. Scientific expert on animal testing, Dr Gill Langley, who has reviewed the experiment, comments:

"Previous cell tests have already showed that butylparaben is inactivated by the human liver when it's ingested, and that it appears to be pretty safe. I think this P&G test was a profligate and wasteful use of animals, especially because animal test results are inherently unreliable for humans. This is for many reasons, including biological variations between different species, and unrealistic doses (i.e. test results from small, short-lived rats given high chemical doses cannot accurately be extrapolated to large, longer lived humans absorbing rather low doses)."

Dan Lyons comments:

"We're sickened and disgusted by the callous and pointless destruction of these sentient creatures. At the very highest doses, the animals suffered poisoning, and the repeated force-feeding procedures are highly stressful, and can cause injury and severe pain. What's more, P&G already concede that they experiment on animals to test new cosmetic ingredients. However, butylparaben has been widely used for many years and there appears to be no specific legal requirement to perform this kind of test. Have P&G been misleading the public again?"

Action!

Click here to find out how you can help defend animals from suffering at P&G's hands.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Daston, G. P. (2004) 'Development Toxicity Evaluation of Butylparaben in Sprague-Dawley Rats'. Birth Defects Research (Part B) 71: 296-302.

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