AFC - 04/24/12 Blindness For "Beauty"

04/24/12 Blindness For "Beauty"

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Animal Friends invites you to the celebration of World Day for Animals in Laboratories

- Performance about animal testing, the film screening of "Safer Medicines," White List of products

Many consumers are unaware that they use cosmetics and cleaning products daily that are tested through outdated and painful experiments on animals. The most famous among them is the so-called Draize Eye Test, invented almost 70 years ago, which is used to measure the harmful effects of chemicals by observing the damages on the eyes of animals. During the Draize Test chemicals are dripped in the eyes of restrained rabbits, and then in the period up to two weeks signs of irritation, redness, swelling, discharge, bleeding or blindness of the animal that is suffering terrible pain is being observed. Animals with permanent eye damage are killed immediately after testing, and if no major damage occurred, they are being used repeatedly in the following experiments, until they are finally killed.

On the World Day for Animals in Laboratories, Tuesday, April 24, at 12 noon on Trg bana Josipa Jelacica in Zagreb, Animal Friends will hold a performance in which they will convincingly show the horrors of the Draize Test on the activist’s fixed head in a restrained position. The "White rabbit" will inform citizens about the ethical choices by sharing leaflets with the so-called White List, inviting us to use only the products of companies that do not conduct animal testing. The white list is also available here. The HCS companies are listed on the white list.

The same day at 6 p.m. in the Europe House Zagreb (Jurisiceva 1/I), organized by the European Movement Croatia, the Europe House of Zagreb and Animal Friends, the citizens will be able to watch the promotion of the film "Safer Medicines," which on this occasion is translated into Croatian. The film narrates about the development of environmental and ethical awareness and questions the traditional research methods and compares them with the latest achievements in the progressive development of biomedicine, which does not use animals for legitimate reasons. After the film projection a debate will be opened on the necessity of introducing credible and ethically acceptable research methods. The film can be seen at www.youtube.com/afcroatia.

Besides the Draize Test, the chemicals used in cosmetic products are tested on peeled and shaved skin of animals which up to two weeks suffer pain from redness, swelling and wound inflammation. Since their appearance these tests have been criticized severely because of their great cruelty and inability to provide reliable data that can be used by people.

Because of the race for profit the market for cosmetics constantly releases new products, promising beauty and youth to those who use them. More than 12 million animals are used annually in various experiments in the European Union, which means that every minute more than ten animals suffer in the cruel and painful experiments.

On the other hand, more and more companies are rejecting testing of their ingredients and finished products on animals, and are using the only completely safe and modern non-animal testing methods, and further public pressure and conscientiousness of customers should lead to a complete ban on the sale of cosmetics tested on animals.

Consumers have the power to stop the outdated animal experiments using cosmetics not tested on animals and signing a petition against animal testing.