Animal Rights vs. Human Lifestyle
The widespread use of animal life to maintain human life or lifestyle is a growing point of controversy. An increasing number of consumers are voicing the opinion that the use of animals in the development of products for human use should be restricted. This is especially true in regard to the cosmetics industry where products are used for appearance rather than health purposes. For example, many consumers, investors, and animal rights activists are offended by the ways in which a product like mascara may be tested on animals before it can be approved for human usage.
There are those who believe that animal testing may be acceptable if used to develop new drugs that may save human lives. The necessary data regarding performance and safety cannot be gathered any other way. But the practice of killing an animal every time a shampoo changes its color is disturbing to many of these same people. While this may seem extreme, this happens under current law because every time something is added to an existing formula the new combination must be retested for safety and effectiveness, and animals do not always survive such testing.
At first, one might question why it is necessary to go to such lengths to test a nonmedical product. But what if a shampoo’s new color proved to harmful to human skin? Or caused hair to fall out? Most consumers agree that it is not acceptable to have less stringent safety standards for such products, and yet there is disagreement about what this means in regard to the ethics of animal testing. It is impossible to set absolute moral guidelines, since each case is unique, but for a variety of reasons, current law is set to err on the side of physical human safety.
