Govt Urged To Consider Nation-wide Ban of Use of Animals for Testing Cosmetics By PETA
A PETA official met the Deputy Drug Controller and urged him to consider the possibility of a nation-wide ban on the use of animals for testing cosmetics. The meeting took place between the PETA Science Policy Advisor Dr Chaitanya Koduri and Guru S Nair of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee and the Deputy Drug Controller, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, S. Manivannan.
The talks were arranged by Guru S. Nair in support of PETA's ongoing campaign against cosmetic testing on animals.
S Manivannan shared a willingness by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to consider a proposal regarding such a ban.
Dr. Koduri now intends to raise the issue in an upcoming meeting of the Bureau of Indian Standards Cosmetics Sectional Committee, PCD 19, of which he is a member.
Dr. Koduri is also seeking a meeting with Health and Family Welfare MInister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
A phased-in ban on the testing of cosmetics and their ingredients on animals is scheduled to take full effect in the European Union in 2013, after which cosmetic products tested on animals, including those tested abroad, cannot be sold in the EU.
PETA's call for an end to the usage of animals to test cosmetics has already gained endorsement from the Indian Council of Medical Research.
"Testing cosmetics on animals is old-fashioned, unnecessary, kills animals and does nothing to protect consumers", claimed Dr. Koduri.
"Today, there are human-relevant and humane non-animal methods of testing the safety of cosmetic products. If the EU can ban cosmetic testing on animals, so can India," he said.
More than 1,000 companies around the world have banned all animal tests, but many still choose to subject animals to painful tests in which substances are smeared on their skin, sprayed in their faces or forced down their throats. Because of the vast physiological differences between humans and the animals used in these tests, the results are often misleading.
Source: ANI