The UK government has today announced the steps it will take to limit the use of animals for testing household products.

Minister of State for Crime Prevention Lynne Featherstone MP stated:“I can today announce the Government’s intention to ban the testing of household products in animals with a qualified ban on the testing of ingredients which are primarily intended for use in household products."

Where testing of ingredients is required for regulatory purposes, we will permit this but require retrospective notification. Where such testing is not required for regulatory purposes, we will require a prospective authorisation, specific to the particular proposal. We will apply a robust harm-benefit analysis to any such applications which we expect to be few.

The ban will not be made by legislation but by amending the conditions on existing project licences. The new policy will largely depend on the application of the harm-benefit test, which is difficult for animal protection groups to monitor given the limited information in the public domain.

OneKind welcomes the fact that the government, having originally committed to reform in 2011, has now made its position clear.  We are disappointed however that the statement fails to introduce a full legislative ban on animal testing of both products and ingredients.  For example, the exemption for regulatory testing leaves the door open for a whole swathe of tests that may be required under EU legislation For decades, laboratory animals have been subjected to painful, distressing experiments to test household products and their ingredients – suffering and dying so that we can access ever more “new and improved”products to clean and decorate our houses.

Of course, most of us feel we need these goods and we need them to be safe.  But the idea that animals can still be used in painful tests for ingredients such as a new fragrance for detergent is bizarre, and of increasing concern to the public.There are already thousands of ingredients available to manufacturers for the formulation and re-formulation of product ranges. OneKind research over the last year has demonstrated that common products such as dishwasher detergents, washing powders and fabric softeners contain dozens of ingredients – many more than the label indicates at first glance.  For example, we found that Persil Biological Powder for Fabrics contained 52 ingredients; Comfort Fabric Conditioner contained 22; and Finish Dishwasher Tablets contained 26.

We looked at historic testing of very common ingredients such as surfactants which are used to enhance cleansing, wetting, foaming and emulsifying properties.  It was a grim picture.  Tests included administering ingredients to animals by force-feeding (gavage), injection or inhalation, spreading them on shaved skin, and dropping them into rabbits’ eyes.  Very often the animals were killed so that their organs and tissues could be studied.

To give an example – and this is a test from the 1980s – researchers carrying out acute oral toxicity testing on rats observed lethargy, pilo-erection (hair standing on end) hunched position, oscillated movements, shaggy coat and emaciation.  Other symptoms included green urine, hypothermia, half-closed or watering eyes, difficult breathing and increased breathing, and prostration.  It’s a pathetic image, isn’t it? And it was for a fragrance ingredient.

It is unlikely that a test of this nature would be permitted today in the UK, but the secrecy surrounding animal testing makes it impossible for animal welfare advocates to find out exactly what is going on.  OneKind wants an end to doubt – to be sure that such unnecessary suffering is genuinely a thing of the past.

It’s a step in the right direction and that must be acknowledged.But we would be letting the animals down if we didn’t continue to ask for more.

Read the Home Office statement here.

The OneKind report on household product testing More Questions than Answers? will appear shortly.