Ethical Science | Compassionate World

Ethical Science and Us

Start small but effective: Be more mindful the next time you are picking up household products and cosmetics. Look for these signs on the products and spend your money on these over non-vegan and animal-tested items. This simple choice will help save thousands of animals from needless pain, suffering, and brutal deaths.

Many naturally-derived cosmetics are cruelty-free and vegan, free from harsh chemicals and better for your health while the by-products are safe for the planet too. You have the power, so choose wisely!

Take a close look at the products you are buying - essentially those that you are creating a demand for. Even a two-minute read about associated animal-testing policies - and how this impacts animals, the environment, and your health - will astound you.

There are companies working towards development of platforms to reduce and replace animal testing in pharmaceutical and cosmetics. Using animal models is only successful 2-5% of the time, making them inefficient models - wasting time, money, and worst of all - torturing animals.

Here is what you can do to support cruelty-free industries:
- Ethical investment: Investing your money in stocks of companies that are moving towards a more ethical and scientifically-efficient model for testing drugs. This information is easily available on the internet.
- The tax you pay and the demand you create matters - be more mindful when you choose your medicines or cosmetics - even two-minute research regarding your product can significantly impact innocent animals, the planet, and your health.

Animal Testing and Alternatives:
Championing Methods To Replace Animal Testing

The Physicians Committee is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, headquartered in Washington, DC. Their efforts are dramatically changing the way doctors treat chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and cancer. By putting prevention over pills, doctors are empowering their patients to take control of their own health.

And they are also building a new way of viewing research. Since 1985, the Physicians Committee has worked tirelessly for alternatives to the use of animals in medical education and research and for more effective scientific methods.

Their staff of physicians, dietitians, and scientists is working with policymakers, industry, the medical community, the media, and the public to create a better future for people and animals.

The Physicians Committee works with government and industry to replace the use of animal tests with modern methods to test the safety of cosmetics, chemicals, pesticides, drugs, and other products.

Through lobbying, publishing research, training scientists, and attending and conducting scientific meetings, the Physicians Committee is dedicated to the goal of eliminating the use of animal testing across the globe.

COVID-19

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Physicians Committee has advocated for the use of nonanimal research methods in the search for treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19 and in the study of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

Report: Powerful Human-Relevant Biomedical Approaches for Studying and Responding to the Novel Coronavirus

Cruelty-Free Cosmetics

In 2018, the Physicians Committee co-sponsored the Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act, which California signed into law. The law will make it unlawful for cosmetic manufacturers to sell any cosmetic in California if the final product or any component of the product was tested on animals after Jan. 1, 2020, with some exceptions for regulatory requirements. The Physicians Committee continues to work for federal reform that will eliminate animal testing for cosmetics.

Chemical Testing Reform

The Physicians Committee spent more than a decade working with the federal government and industry to include reforms that reduce and replace animal testing in the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. In 2016, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act was signed into law. The law requires chemical companies and the Environmental Protection Agency to replace and reduce animal tests and increase the use of human-relevant methods.

The Physicians Committee also played a central role in the publication of plans by the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration to replace animal tests with nonanimal methods.

The Physicians Committee is working directly with Congress and regulatory agencies to ensure that, in time, all batches of injectable drugs and vaccines, including those against COVID-19, are tested using nonanimal methods.

International Efforts

Since 2006, the Physicians Committee has served as the Secretariat of the International Council for Animal Protection in OECD Programmes (ICAPO), which works for the widest possible implementation of measures to replace, reduce, and refine animal tests within OECD guidelines and programs. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental standard-setting organization that sets harmonized chemical testing guidelines worldwide.

Training on New Approaches

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, for decades, has advocated for human-relevant safety regulatory testing. With the rapid pace of technological advancements, it can become challenging to stay abreast of progressive methodologies within certain regulatory jurisdictions. Our toxicologists partner with leading experts in the fields of in vitro and in silico toxicology to promote and develop New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) and other non-animal approaches geared towards regulatory application. Designed for interested stakeholders, we provide training like the NURA program and resources similar to NAMs within TSCA.

References:

Hundreds of Scientists Trained on Methods To Reduce and Replace Animal Tests

GOOD SCIENCE DIGEST, Dec 11, 2020, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Physicians Committee experts recently trained hundreds of scientists on New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), which are methods that reduce and replace the use of animals in chemical testing.

In October, the American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology—a scientific society co-founded by the Physicians Committee—held its ninth annual meeting, which included lectures and discussions about developing and using NAMs. The meeting, which was attended by more than 200 regulators, academics, students, and industry scientists from around the world, included speakers from Dow Chemical, the EPA, Health Canada, and Roche, and 22 oral and 70 poster presenters, all presenting their work on nonanimal methods for assessing chemicals, drugs, and other products. Kristie Sullivan, MPH, vice president of research policy for the Physicians Committee, serves as the secretary for ASCCT.

Physicians Committee Toxicologist Esther Haugabrooks, PhD, also organized and hosted a successful full-day training with Environmental Protection Agency method developers in October, where more than 200 scientists learned how to assess chemical safety with the EPA’s computational tools.

In November, Dr. Haugabrooks also hosted two trainings at the Association for the Advancement of Alternatives Assessment's annual symposium. More than 200 participants learned about nonanimal toxicology assessment from experts from L'Oréal, Unilever, Cosmetics Europe, Medical University of Innsbruck, the cosmetics regulatory body in Europe, and several test method developers. The association’s members are professionals in the chemical assessment community looking for alternatives to toxic chemicals in products and the environment. They advise companies on how to assess chemicals outside of traditional regulatory requirements and wanted to learn more about NAMs.

The Physicians Committee also provides NAMs training to industry, government, and academic scientists through the New Approach Methodology (NAM) Use for Regulatory Application (NURA) continuing education program.