Commission Agenda Entry: Thursday, 22nd June: Action plan aimed at reducing animal testing

Brussels, 16 Jun 2006

The news:

• Around 10.7 million animals per year are used for testing (2002). More than half of these are used in research and development for human medicine, dentistry, and in fundamental biology studies. About 16% in production and quality control of products and devices in human medicine, veterinary medicine and dentistry and about 10% for toxicological and other safety evaluation. From this 10% about 0.25% (+/- 2600 animals) was used for toxicological or other safety evaluations of products/substances used or intended to be used mainly as cosmetics or toiletries.
• A year ago the “European Partnership on Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing” was initiated by the Commission to promote alternative approaches to animal testing. This group, which is a partnership between the Commission, industry associations and major companies, is expected to publish an action programme with the aim of refining reducing and replacing animal use to meet regulatory safety requirements.
• In addition, the Commission intends to publish new guidelines for labelling cosmetic products as “not tested on animals”. The new guidelines will allow manufacturers to indicate that no animal tests have been carried out by the manufacturer and his suppliers in the development of the product. There will be common criteria for the use of such claims, in particular to ensure that they do not mislead the consumer or lead to unfair competition

The event:
IP on the day.

The sources:

- IP/05/1375

- IP/03/662

• European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods website: http://ecvam.jrc.it/index.htm

The contacts:
Gregor Kreuzhuber +32 2 29 66565 ; Catherine Bunyan + 32 2 29 96512

Item source: AGENDA/05/9