MPs in Canada are expected to vote on a draft law – the Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act – which would ban the testing of cosmetics and cosmetic ingredients on animals in Canada, and block the sale of personal care products that have been assessed using such techniques.
The draft law has cleared all legislative hurdles in the Canadian parliament’s upper house, the Senate, but must be approved by the current House of Commons (ahead of a scheduled 2019 election) before it can become law.
This move comes as a new bill to end the use of animals in cosmetics and related ingredient tests in Colombia (also banning the import of cosmetics tested on animals) was proposed to the Colombian Congress (in August). If passed, this would be the first such comprehensive ban in Latin America. Colombian political commentators expect the law to be approved within two years.
“The congressmen are very optimistic about the bill,” says Eduardo Pena, Animal Defenders International’s Campaigns Coordinator for Latin America. The main author of the bill is Juan Carlos Losada, an activist and leader of the Colombian Liberal Party, which is part of the government coalition. The law would come into force 12 months after being passed.
Also, Australia is debating a proposed animal testing ban within the Australian Industrial Chemicals Introduction Scheme (AICIS), a legislative package that passed un-amended through the House of Representatives on 17 October 2017 and is currently before the Australian Senate.
The bill had been drafted so that there would be a ban on animal testing for new chemical ingredients in cosmetics in Australia from 1 July 2018. However, as the legislation is still pending, the Australian government has decided to defer commencement of the scheme until 1 July 2019, “to assist regulated entities to adequately prepare for compliance with AICIS”, according to the country’s department of health.
Despite the lengthy process, Clive Phillips, Professor of Animal Welfare at the University of Queensland, cannot foresee anything blocking approval of the legislation. He says no cosmetic animal testing is currently undertaken in Australia. However, he is still concerned that loopholes will remain for manufacturers as “chemicals used for other purposes may still be tested on animals”.
A global ban is achievable, but it requires acceptance of alternative ways of demonstrating the safety of the cosmetic
EU supports global ban
Animal testing bans are drawing increasing support across the world. Indeed, the European Commission, the executive of the European Union (EU), which has a long-standing ban, is pressing for a global ban on animal testing in cosmetics by 2023, an official tells Cosmetic Business.
The EU Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Commissioner Elzkowska told the European Parliament environment committee that “we will support any initiative at international level to end animal testing in cosmetics, in particular any EU member state initiative proposing a UN resolution on the matter”.
The Commissioner is also looking at “proposing clauses on animal testing for future trade agreements where appropriate”.
Bienkowska was speaking before MEPs adopted in May 2018 (by 620 votes to 14, with 18 abstentions) a resolution demanding a global ban. MEPs also demanded an end to ingredients being tested on animals in other products before being used in cosmetics and to the EU accepting cosmetic imports already tested on animals outside the bloc.
Backed by big campaigning names, such as Cruelty Free International, and brands such as The Body Shop, MEPs say a ban is essential. Although a EU law against animal testing has been in place since March 2013, under the Cosmetics Regulation 1223/2009, 80% of countries globally still test products on animals.
China demands mandatory animal testing for imported cosmetics. And the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), while not requiring animal testing, maintains such techniques “may be used to establish product safety”.
A full set of alternatives
Industry organisation Cosmetics Europe emphasised in a note that the EU ban “covers all toxicological endpoints, irrespective of whether a full set of alternative methods is available to replace corresponding animal studies”.
And it is very unlikely to be changed. The UK’s Cosmetic, Toiletry & Perfumery Association’s (CTPA) Director-General Chris Flower stresses: “It is already the most comprehensive ban on animal testing of cosmetic products and their ingredients anywhere in the world.”
But despite considerable progress, with the industry “at the forefront of developing alternatives for regulatory safety assessment for more than 25 years”, a comprehensive set of alternative methods and/or approaches have not yet been established, Cosmetics Europe’s Science and Research Director, Rob Taalman, says. This means industry will “remain constrained until here is a complete set of alternative approaches for safety assessment”.
“The testing of finished products on animals is unnecessary to establish their safety,” Taalman tells Cosmetics Business. “A global ban is achievable, but it requires acceptance of alternative ways of demonstrating the safety of the cosmetic.”
The CTPA’s Flower adds the European cosmetics industry invested scientific expertise and “a huge amount of money”, matched by the European Commission through its SEURAT-1 programme (Safety Evaluation Ultimately Replacing Animal Testing), on replacing in vivo repeated dose systemic toxicity testing, which was completed in December 2016; u25m of funding came from the European Commission and u25 million from Cosmetics Europe.
A new EU-ToxRisk Consortium has also been launched to push such work forward. This project started in January 2016 and is funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
But while “good progress has been made” in finding alternatives to animal testing, “there is more to be done”, Flower says.
Globally, the International Collaboration on Cosmetics Regulation (ICCR) system, which unites regulators from the EU, US, Japan, Brazil and Canada, as well as observer countries, gathers information on alternative methods to animal tests. A new report to be published soon will look at risk assessment principles, Taalman says.
The post Brexit landscape
Meanwhile, UK manufacturers are being advised to follow the EU Cosmetics Regulation, as well as European Commission and European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) guidance on animal testing, even as Britain’s scheduled March departure from the EU looms. Flower says: “ICCR does not issue specific guidance”, as this is up to individual ICCR countries.
Certainly, the Commission and industry maintain the EU ban will apply after March 2019, although we cannot “predict which regulatory framework, including the ban of animal testing, the UK will follow after withdrawing from the EU”, a Brussels official notes.
But, for Flower, “UK legislation post-Brexit will certainly not revert to allowing animal testing, since the UK cosmetics industry itself voluntarily abandoned the practice seven years ahead of the EU-wide legislative ban.
“Neither the cosmetics industry nor its customers wish to see that position change and nor does the UK government,” he tells Cosmetics Business.
Changes in Asia
Elsewhere in the world, in February 2017, South Korea amended its Cosmetic Act, banning animal-tested cosmetic products and cosmetic ingredients, either manufactured in the country or imported.
However, the ban only applies to tests for which alternative methods have been accepted by South Korea’s ministry of food and drug safety. Among the fields for which currently no alternative tests are accepted are toxicity of repeated dosages; sensitisation of the skin; and irritation of skin and eyes – which covers a significant number of tests.
Moreover, despite the ban, a substantial share of South Korean cosmetics brands do not have cruelty-free certifications. One explanation is that the important neighbouring market of mainland China requires animal testing of all imported cosmetic products, including K-cosmetics.
“China requires animal tests in its territory. Korean brands selling in China must execute animal testing in assigned Chinese labs and only that is acknowledged for product registration,” says Seongmin (Mike) Sohn, a researcher at the Korea Cosmetic Industry Institute (KCII).
This conflict is reflected in a statement from major South Korean cosmetics maker AmorePacific. It says the company voluntarily discontinued animal testing on cosmetic ingredients and finished goods in 2008, and, in 2013, expanded the non-animal testing policy to its suppliers.
However, it adds “exceptions to this principle will apply, however, if animal testing is required or bound by local governments or laws”.
One problem for the Koreans is that their major competitors in Japan have a free hand on animal testing. There have been no legal changes covering animal testing for Japan’s cosmetics industry in recent years, with domestic companies largely left to make their own decisions.
Under the present regulations, the responsibility for ensuring the safety of personal care products lies in the hands of manufacturers, who are not required to submit data or the results of pre-market testing for materials and ingredients that have already been approved, to the ministry of health, labour and welfare.
The ministry may, however, require animal tests for new quasi-drugs, which are increasingly crossing the market boundaries into the personal care sector.
Animal rights organisations claim that Japanese politicians, who have previously spoken about introducing an outright ban on animal testing, have become less vocal, although Japanese regulators do issue guidance on Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)-approved non-animal testing approaches.
As a result, several Japanese brands – including Pola, Noevir, Fujifilm and Rohto – have ended animal testing in their products.
A spokesperson for the Kao Group told Cosmetics Business the company halted animal testing in March 2015, while a Chifure official said the company has never conducted tests on animals.
The China loophole
While China has no draft plans to lift is requirement for animal testing on imports, there are moves to increase animal test-free cosmetics in this huge market. London-based Cruelty Free International (CFI) in collaboration with Shanghai Fengpu Industrial Park in June 2018 announced a project assessing whether a cruelty-free brand could ship all ingredients to China for final production and be sold, taking advantage of the 2014 China cosmetics law that allows China-made cosmetics to skip animal tests.
“Brands are certainly enthusiastic about the collaboration. Over 200 Cruelty Free members applied for the project, but only five of them will be selected,” Mette Knudsen, CEO at the Shanghai-based consulting company Knudsen&Co, tells Cosmetics Business.
China’s current law, however, has blocked sales of major cruelty-free cosmetics brands, such as Urban Decay and The Body Shop. Should the project be successful, cosmetics brands, especially European brands, may regard it as a means to access China’s massive cosmetics market, Knudsen says. She adds officials at Fengpu are also very interested in the project, which could “bring many jobs to the industrial park”.
The American brand Nudestix has been making contingencies. Having entered China in 2017, the company not only supplies the market from its China manufacturing facility, but has also moved its supply chain, sourcing ingredients from the China operations of European companies.
India: Animal-free beauty
By contrast, in China’s major Asian rival India, the testing of cosmetics has been banned since November 2015 and even for foreign-made products, an importer must give an undertaking that they are not tested on animals.
However, the ban has not affected the development of new products, says Babasaheb Gaikwad, Director & President (Oleochemicals) at Mumbai-based VVF.
“The industry has found alternative means to test them,” he said. Furthermore, for the last four years, the Indian cosmetics industry has been considering how to display vegetarian and non-vegetarian marking on products with green and brown dots, which could affect sales, as many Indians are strictly vegetarian. A proposal for mandatory vegetarian labelling is still under consideration.
