The European Union’s recent ban on the sale of cosmetic products and ingredients that have been tested on animals may have ripple effects across the pond – including in Canada.
The ban, which came into effect March 11, applies in Europe to both domestically sold and imported cosmetics – products ranging from sunscreen to lipstick.
The EU has also requested the United States and China consider a similar ban on cosmetics whose ingredients undergo animal testing.
The ban is not retroactive; it won’t affect products that were previously tested on animals. But it could affect new compounds, and therein lies the problem for cosmetics manufacturers, including some in Canada.
Any new products, or ingredients tested on animals in the future, will not be allowed for sale in the EU.
“Canada has some major export facilities,” said Darren Praznik, president and CEO of the Canadian Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association. “L’Oreal in Montreal does hair dyes, 90 per cent are exported. The Estee Lauder companies have a number of major manufacturing facilities in Toronto that produce matte cosmetics, again over 90 per cent exported.”
These manufacturing plants do no animal testing, but should their parent companies need to test new ingredients on animals, it would affect the ability of such plants to sell the new cosmetics to Europe.
Although the EU told the cosmetics industry a full decade ago that it would be banning animal testing – it first gave notice of the ban in 2003 – experts say it won’t be easy to take animals out of the equation.
“At present, some of the areas of testing are difficult to replicate by non-animal methods,” said Dr. Gilly Griffin, programs director for the Canadian Council on Animal Care. Griffin cited, for example, animal testing that is done for “reproductive toxicity, carcinogenicity and toxicokinetics – how compounds are metabolized by the body.”
Testing on whether repeated doses are toxic, or for reproductive problems or metabolism issues, is most often done with live rats. The substance at question is administered orally and, depending on the test, the duration is most commonly anywhere from 28 to 90 days.
Testing of cosmetic ingredients on animals is not required by Canadian law. However, cosmetic manufacturers must be able to prove that their products are safe. Currently, the only way to do that on new compounds is to use animals, experts say, because there is no alternative method.
Finding alternative tests is difficult because our knowledge of how the body works is still so limited, one expert said.
“The problem with the body is it’s very complicated in how all the systems interact with each other,” said Dr. Bill Yates, a professor of otolaryngology and neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. “Although we know a lot, there’s more to learn than we already know. Some systems are so poorly understood that they can’t be modelled.”
Companies that do their research in Canada could continue to do so with animal testing, under Canadian law. But any new product using those results would not be allowed into the EU.
The CCAC says it has not certified any institutions doing animal testing in relation to cosmetic approval. The cosmetic association says that “if any cosmetic-specific testing is actually done in Canada, it would be at an extremely low volume.”
Still, the cosmetics industry worries the ban means an entire market could be closed off to innovative new cosmetics in the future.
“Is it a problem today? No, because everything on the market was grandfathered in,” said Praznik. “But until all those alternatives tests are (created and) accepted there will be a gap which will probably cause some issues in Europe that they’re not quite sure how they’re going to handle yet.”
Most of the research being done on alternative testing methods that don’t use animals is centred in two facilities in the United States and Europe: The Johns Hopkins Center for Alternative Animal Testing, and SEURAT-1, a cluster of labs spread throughout Europe, which stands for Safety Evaluation Ultimately Replacing Animal Testing.
“It’s progressing,” said Colin McKay, communications director for Cosmetics Europe. “However, science is not marching to a political timetable.”
“There are research labs in our industry in Canada, but they are not labs that are engaged in animal testing issues,” said Praznik. “(Alternative testing) is not really an issue in which Canadian researchers or labs have been, to my knowledge, significantly involved in.”
In Canada domestically, cosmetics are a $9.14-billion industry. Cleaning products and toiletries accounted for $2.2 billion in exports in 2012, according to Statistics Canada.
Related articles
- What now for the cosmetics industry after EU ban on animal testing? (metro.co.uk)
- EU bans animal-tested cosmetics (bbc.co.uk)
- Celebs join the fight against animal-tested cosmetics (usatoday.com)
