Animal Testing: Synthetic Skin

There are many alternatives that exist to the use of live animals in research and most non-animal testing methods are more reliable and less expensive. Some of those alternatives are, “synthetic skin” called Corrositex, computer modeling, improved statistical design, and the Murine Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA). “Another resource that exists to prove the viability and relevance of using non-animal testing methods is Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME).” FRAME is located in England and seeks to promote a moderate, but determined approach, by encouraging a consideration of the ethical and scientific issues involved in animal testing for cosmetics.

Also, some companies avoid testing at all by using non-toxic natural ingredients or something that has been already approved by the Cosmetics, Toiletry and Fragrance Association. “As Gordon Baxter, cofounder of Pharmagene Laboratories, which uses only computers and human tissues to create and test drugs once said, “If you have information on human genes, what’s the point of going back to animals?”” Gordon has a point. Considering the fact that we have come this far in testing human genes and figuring out so much information about our genes, why test on animals? All testing on animals does is give false information and kill a million of animals every year. It is practically pointless.

Companies have recently discovered a way to grow human skin in a laboratory disk, better known as Episkin. Episkin is grown from cells harvested from the top layer of pieces of skin. This is expected to dramatically reduce the need to test cosmetics and chemicals on animals, as well as sparing tens of thousands of animals a year that go through the misery of laboratory trials. So, as you see there are many ways to avoid the use of animal testing for cosmetics and it is very painful for these poor animals to go through what they go through during an experiment. Millions of animals lives are taken, a year, due to animal testing. Therefore, there needs to be an end to animal testing, for good!