I read an article on BellaSugar a while back about how the numbers of animals involved in testing has dramatically increased in recent years due to things like Botox — each batch must be tested on our furry friends. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, so I wanted to open a thread to ask you how you feel about animal testing. Please do share your thoughts!
Personally, my take on this is very lax. (I used to only use products not tested on animals, but not anymore… we’ll get into that in a moment). When it comes to pharmaceuticals, I am definitely in favour of animal testing — it’s selfish of me, but quite frankly, I’d rather have a family of mice suffer consequences than myself or my own family. When it comes to cosmetics and skincare, I’m a little more pro-animal…
…but not much. From where I’m standing, there are three options:
(a) The company tests on animals,
(b) The company doesn’t test on animals, but the ingredients they use have been tested on animals, or
(c) The company doesn’t test on animals, but their formulas (or the formulas of their ingredients) have been based off of formulas previously tested on animals.
adorable little guys via Getty Images.
Perhaps I’m a pessimist, but it does seem like one of those things that is very hard to avoid in its entirety. If a company takes a stance against animal testing, it definitely does work in their favour for me (I’d buy a product not tested on animals if it was just as good as the one tested on animals, even with a little price increase), but I wouldn’t stop using one of my favourite products just because it was tested on animals. The way I see it — really, what hasn’t, at some point in time?
Would I be able to test on animals, though? Doubtful. Which may pose some problems later in my schooling, but we’ll deal with that when we must!
For more information, I encourage you to check out the PETA site, but remember to take everything with a grain of salt. Most of these articles have been written with a very strong bias, and if you really are interested in going animal-testing-free, I’d also recommend reading pro-testing articles (try googling terms like “animal testing pros” or “animal testing beneficial.”)
Again, I do encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments! However, we do not tolerate name-calling, cheap shots, etc. Arguments for and against testing are definitely allowed, but please remember to keep them polite and academic — not rowdy and un-based ;) Remember, too, that you can include links to studies and articles in the comments with a href tags, or simply by pasting in the url!
