@Romani Did you not read the part where the article (and subsequent comments) pointed out that the reason those companies can produce new cosmetics is because all of the ingredients they are using have already been tested on animals?

Also, what’s your basis for animal testing being cheaper? Animal testing is ridiculously expensive. You don’t think they just grab animals off the streets to test, do you? These animals have to be bred, fed, kept clean and healthy by a whole bunch of people (who have to be paid, too). Breeding animals costs money. Their food costs money. Their housing costs money. Bedding costs money. Economically, it would be far cheaper NOT to do animal testing.

Your claim that 98% of animal testing fails is pretty bogus. You have any actual backing for that?

@Anna I hope you’re just referring to animal testing in cosmetics, because sorry, the people who need treatment for various diseases can’t really afford to wait a few years.

@Melody Citations for any of your claims that so many medicines tested on animals turned out to be lethal in humans? Your suggestion that we should test drugs on human volunteers is already being done – after the animal testing (because drugs go through multiple tests before being released to the public). And what “synthetic skin” are you talking about? What synthetic skin out there actually reacts the same way to drug application as real skin? The same goes for computer models. This is one of the weakest “alternative suggestions” to animal testing I’ve ever heard, coming from people who don’t know the first thing about what computer modeling is actually capable of. Listen, we can’t make computer models of things we don’t know fully about (we can come up with hypothetical models, sure, but that’s useless for testing drugs). We are barely able to model CELLULAR interactions at our current level of knowledge, and you want to be able to model an entire organism and its response to a drug?

So, @spad, scientists are already trying to come up with alternatives. But it sure as hell isn’t going to take the 2-3 years you’re suggesting, especially since much of the alternatives are going to need data that comes from animal testing to become viable.

@ Jackiefu Your facetious comments about fluffy eyelashes & about hats being preventions to skin cancer are insulting to people who need various cosmetics to live a healthy life, and you must know it yourself. Not all “cosmetics” are frivolous. People plagued with acne and even more serious skin conditions deserve something that can ease their symptoms and maybe eventually cure it.

Look, if you guys genuinely think that non-human animal lives are just as sacred as human lives, and therefore animal testing needs to be banned RIGHT NOW, then I guess there’s nothing more to say. But it’s not just a matter of cosmetics. You should probably be prepared for a grinding halt on newer treatments for life-threatening diseases. And this applies to non-human animals too, actually, since where do you think advances in veterinary medicine come from?

Can you guys please guide me out?