March 4, 2013 • 26 mins
Did you know that the EU enforces its ban on animal-tested products in March 2013? Why did mascara kick off animal testing in the U.S.? Why are women more invested in animal rights, compared to men? Join Caroline and Cristen to learn more.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And why don't we kick off Caroline
with some news out of the European Union news alert?
(00:24):
Do you need an accent news alert? Very good from
the European Union. Yeah. It turns out of the European
Union banned animal testing for cosmetics. Yeah, and it's going
into effect on March eleventh, two thousand thirteen, so it's
coming right up around the corner as this podcast is
being recorded. And it took twenty three years of trying,
(00:48):
but the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments helped bring
about that band, which is a pretty huge deal. Yeah.
This they say that all personal care products, so not
just you know, powder, but shampoo for instance, all personal
care care products will be subject to the rules, meaning
that final products cannot have been tested on animals. This
(01:13):
band was actually approved ten years ago, a full decade people,
and they initially agreed to begin enforcing it in two
thousand nine. But you know how these things are. People
move slowly, but the European Union is way ahead of
the US. If we're talking about bands and things. This
is true UM, and the EU is not the only
(01:33):
group of nations thinking about this. UH. Israel, although it
is not a group, it is a singular nation and
a singular nation. In addition to the European Union, UH
is banning the important marketing and sale of any cosmetics,
toiletries or detergents whose manufacturing process involved animal testing. But
it does make exemptions for items produced for medicinal products
(01:57):
not categorized as drugs. And that new law is in
addition to a two thousand seven law that banned animal
testing in Israel's cosmetics industry. But Mark Bittman, who we've
referenced a number of times and I'm sure a lot
of our listeners are familiar with from his food writing
at the New York Times, wrote in an op ed
(02:17):
column in February two, hey don't celebrate yet. Yeah, he
says that there are plenty don't worry people, There are
plenty of questionable ingredients still in your products. And not
only that, animal testing is far from over. And so
not only are we are we not We're not quite
there yet, especially in the US, from banning all animal
(02:38):
testing or at least you know, reducing it. China, they
came around and officially mandated that animal testing happen with
cosmetics like you have to. You can't sell cosmetics in
China if they haven't been tested on animals. But that
puts them in a sticky situation because then where are
they going to sell them outside of China? You put
that lipstick on a rabbit in China. Is such a
(03:01):
good example of how this animal testing issue is such
a complex one, not just from the you know, the
starting point of public perception in the whole morality debate
surrounding animal testing, but even to how how do you
stop it when it is so common and it's so
widespread and some would argue that it has positive benefits
(03:23):
as well. Um, But before we go any further though, Caroline,
some people might be wondering, why are christ and Caroline
talking about animal testing on stuff? Mom never told you
gender aspect all women love bunnies? Is that it? Well?
I don't have any empirical data to back that up,
although I will say that of the women in this
(03:45):
room right now, I think really enjoy bunnies. Antie, our producer,
she nods, we got we got a three for three
for bunnies. Now, Um, it's true. There has been um.
First of all, a long established gender differ in perceptions
toward animal testing. And what I mean by that is
(04:05):
that survey after survey after survey has shown that women,
more often than men opposed animal testing, usually on grounds
that we don't want to inflict unnecessary harm on animals
more taking more of the moral approach to it. Um.
For instance, there was a nine six study published in
(04:25):
the journal Ethics and Behavior which found that female college
students were more likely to support animal testing restrictions and
express concern over the suffering aspect, whereas men were more
likely to argue on behalf of the potential scientific insight
glean basically saying like, well, you know, if you got
to kill a few mice to get a drug that
(04:47):
can help a lot of people, then okay, then that's fine. Yeah. Well,
there was a two thousand three Gallop poll among Americans, Britons,
and Canadians, and overall the majority of American and Canadians
thought that animal testing was more morally acceptable than Britain's did. However,
women in all countries who found that animal testing was
(05:11):
morally wrong far outnumbered the proportion of men who did so. Yeah,
so it's not just a thing of American women clutching
their their bunnies and their their mice. Um. And it's interesting,
and we don't have time to go into it in
this episode, and we should do another episode on this.
But women have always been very active with animal rights
in general, and this is something that people often trace
(05:34):
back to the progressive eras anti vivis section movement, in
which it was middle class women leading the charge in
what would be the predecessor to today's animal rights movement
that we think about and it's yeah, it's that whole
idea of the progressive eras moral accountability that the women
at the time talked about. And they also had a
large presence in the anti cruelty groups of the time
(05:57):
UM and groups like the a A vs. The American
Anti Vivisection Society. And if you want to learn more
about this, Emily Gardner has written a whole book on
this called Women and the Animal Rights Movement. And I
was looking at one section from the book and when
she was talking to twenty seven female animal rights activists
(06:18):
trying to figure out why it is that so many
women are involved in the first place in why more
men aren't involved, And she talked about how their presence
and animal rights was largely explained from just basic biological influences,
social learning, and empathy based on common oppressions, and that
whole common oppression thing is something that comes up as well,
(06:41):
where you can find so many papers on connections drawn
between animal rights support and feminism, basically saying like, you know,
we can empathize with, you know, oppression, I suppose in
a way. Yeah, And she said, uh, you know, are
the cages that can find humans and young girls any
(07:01):
different than the cages that can find animals? And I
can understand how some people might think that that is
a bit of a philosophical stretch, but I think it
would be worth us coming back to at some point
really digging into that history of why women have been
so invested in animal rights. But we thought because it
is such a gendered issue, not just on the human
(07:25):
side of whether or not you support it or oppose it,
but there's also gendered issues among test animals that we
could come back and talk about as well. The fact
that a lot of those mice, for instance, that we
think of in science labs tend to be male and
whether that's really such a good model if you're looking for, say,
(07:46):
a medication for female chronic pain things like that. So
gender is very much tied up with animal testing. Yeah, Now,
going back to more general history of animal testing, it
has really been crucial as far as testing everything from
medicines to yeah, even your shampoo. And there's a good
(08:07):
example of diabetic dogs proving the existence of insulin in
the nineteen twenties. I'm imagining dogs and lab coats. Yes,
And one critical turning point was in nineteen thirty three
when at least seventeen American women were blinded by and
one died of complications from the use of new mascara
(08:29):
lash lure. At the time, no laws governed the safety
of consumer products. So everybody's like, oh my god, mascara
is killing our women. Yeah. There was this untested chemical
in it, a pheno emma diamine that caused blisters, abscesses,
and ulcers around women's eyelashes in faces. It even did
(08:49):
you mention that it even blinded one woman and one
woman got an infection so bad that she ended up
dying from it. Um. If you want to see some
not not so fun pictures on the internet. You can
google lash lure um. But because of that, Congress passed
the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of nineteen thirty eight,
(09:12):
requiring that products be verified safe for human use before
they could be sold. Yeah, so this is where we
get the entrance of widespread animal testing based on the
premise that animals are similar enough to people. And I guess,
I mean call me ignorant. I really never thought of
thought of it that way as people being like, oh, well,
(09:34):
now we should start testing on bunnies and and mice.
Like I I never thought of it coming about that way, really,
I guess I thought of it as more of like
a lab medicine kind of thing that came later, right,
I mean, at the time, I guess it was a
safety need that they thought that they were easily fulfilling. Um.
And if we fast forward to today, if we think about, well,
(09:56):
how many how many animals are involved in all this testing.
In two thousand seven, New York Times reported that, by
conservative estimates, tens of millions of animals are killed or
maimed each year in research on safety and effectiveness of
new drugs, agricultural chemicals, and consumer products. That would include cosmetics.
(10:16):
And I should mention too that we have had some
listeners right and asking us to do on an episode
specifically on animal testing on in cosmetics. But it's such
a huge thing that they're like, finding that granular of
information is surprisingly challenging. Yeah, although there is plenty of
(10:37):
information on lash lore, which is horrifying. One thing I
think is interesting, though, is just the lack of specific
and concrete numbers. The Humane Society in two thousand nine estimated,
similarly to that New York Times estimate, that more than
twenty five million vertebrate animals are used each year in research, testing,
in education, but they say accurate and comprehensive figures for
(11:00):
the US aren't available, and they point out that the
most common animal used, which are rats and mice bread
for research, aren't actually counted in that ginormous number of
lab animals, nor are they covered under the Animal Welfare Act. Yeah,
and so if you want to if you're curious about
the types of animals using research, obviously the number one
(11:22):
it's gonna be mice than rats, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters,
farm animals, dogs, primates, and cats. I can't even imagine
how they get a cat to sit still. I mean,
that's an insensitive comment, but that's why they live in cages.
Kitty cats. They're like, no, get off of me. But
the FDA stands on animal testing and products safety is
(11:44):
a little bit flimsy because the FDA says, hey, cosmetic firms,
I guess what, we want you to substantiate the safety
of your products. We don't want a lash Lore incident
happening again. But we're not going to necessarily re wire
you to do anything. And we're going to tell you
that we don't really like animal testing, but really we
(12:05):
just want to make sure that people don't get hurt
because of your products. Yeah, the FDA has advised manufacturers
to use whatever testing is appropriate for backing up the
safety of their products, but they haven't specifically said one
way or the other, don't use animals, or you have
to use animals. They do support applicable laws that are
(12:26):
in place, and one of those that we mentioned just
a second ago is the Animal Welfare Act, which was
signed into law in nineteen sixties six. It's the only
federal law that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition,
or transport by dealers, and the Act requires that minimum
standards of care and treatment be provided for certain animals
bread for these uses. And I can imagine that that
(12:47):
people listening who are more active with animal rights would say, yeah,
minimum standards of care and treatment. I mean, that's it's
it is pretty baseline when you read about like what
minimum care entails is, you know, it's obviously like small
confined spaces and lots of food. Mice can just gorge
themselves usually no exercise, no bridge games, Sunday brunches with
(13:14):
the FAM. No. And then in two thousand to the
National Institutes of Health also got involved with overseeing the
care and use of laboratory animals with their Office of
Laboratory and Animal Welfare that's responsible for essentially administering policies
to make sure that animals involved in government funded research
are treated well. And then on top of that, getting
(13:36):
back to the whole cosmetics thing, there is a Safe
Cosmetics Act that was introduced in June two thousand eleven,
which is kind of just like a like an encouragement thing, like, hey,
do the right thing companies. And I don't think it's
been adopted yet, and I think it's still floating out
there like use safe powders. Yeah, it's it's almost like
(13:59):
the f d A the government, and I understand like
this when you're dealing with so many manufacturers manufacturing so
many products, I'm sure that it is challenging. But the
fact is it seems like the government takes merely a
good will approach, but like we like we give a
thumbs up to safe things, safe for all. Yeah, I
(14:22):
mean I think I think the arguments definitely out there
that hey, do you care more about your eyeballs not
melting off or or the bunny's eyeballs not melting off?
And that that is a question for some people. That
is a question for some people. And there are also
researchers who are busy looking for alternatives because it's not
like scientists are like, wah, I get to go to
(14:44):
look and and kill mice today or maybe somewhere I
hope not. There are alternatives being developed out there. The
John Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing developed altway,
which is the clearinghouse for information about methods, research and
resources for alternative methods. So what are the some of
(15:06):
the things out there that helps there's grasp ingredients g
r A S, which is generally recognized as safe. These
are ingredients that don't require further testing. Uh, they're also
test tube in and computer technology, so it's sort of
a loophole like they were possibly tested a long time ago,
but now we recognize that they're okay, so we don't
(15:26):
have to test them anymore. Yeah, that would be like
an argument for companies that offer organic, all natural cosmetics
and beauty products. We don't have to worry so much
about the safety because we know that these things are
natural and okay for us, unless, of course, we have
an allergic reaction. And there are other efforts underway to
(15:48):
look into in vitro methods using human cells, cell line,
or cellular components to test on that smaller cellular basis,
rather than having to test an entire living organism like
a mouse or a rat or a bird um and
then looking at genetically genetically engineered rodents for labs. Although
(16:08):
that's that seems like it's just a different iteration of
the same thing. Yeah. Well, the whole using human cells
and human tissue makes sense to me because I mean,
that's actual people data, not mice data that we somehow
have to extrapolate and try to infer things from because
a lot of times, and I mean we'll get into
this in a second, but a lot of times the
information you get from a rat or a chimpanzee or
(16:30):
a rabbit has nothing to do with how an actual
human being would react to a product, right, I mean,
and obviously, you know, the closest you could get would
be through testing on primates. But oh my goodness, if
we have you know, if there's a moral debate around
whether or not to test on mice, you can imagine
the testing on chimpan z s. That's out of the question. Um.
But yeah, Caroline, it's such a good point about the
(16:52):
fact that the number one test subject mice actually do
make for terrible human comparisons in in a lot of ways. Yeah,
this is coming from a Slate article on February thirteen
of this year. A study in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences found that among one hundred and
(17:14):
fifty potential treatments for severe inflammation that we're tested on
mice and that actually ended up helping the mice, none
of them had a positive result in human trials. Now,
they focused on inflammation just because that's what the researchers
themselves were focused on. It was interesting to read about
how what a difficult time they had getting this study published,
just because everybody's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. All
(17:36):
of our studies come from people who who practice on mice,
so we don't want to have like negative news out there.
But yeah, they found that there were not many similarities
between mouse and human data at all, including, you know,
the genes involved in each species inflammation, the molecules or
kinds of signaling that goes on inside cells, and the
correlation between mice and people. They said it was close
(17:58):
to zero. Now, in two thousand eight, there was another
paper that was also published in Penus Penus that identified
a hundred and twenty genes that are vital to human survival. Now,
of those, caroline just three turned out to also be
essential in mice. You might say, oh, that's still a
pretty significant that that's a jump. And the conclusion they
(18:21):
came to they said, it is possible that mouse models
of a large number of human diseases will not yield
sufficiently accurate information, although they might provide some basic knowledge.
So the uncomfortable conclusion that this reaches is that maybe
we need to find a better model for humans, which
is why things like testing those human cells or cell
(18:44):
lines could be a better alternative. But also there's a
whole issue raised of like, well, okay, well, let's keep
using mice if you want to use mice, but let's
look at what makes them so great at fighting certain
conditions or why didn't they suffer the inflammation that we
did under the certain condition, Because it's interesting, like all
the all the different types of humans that were tested,
(19:05):
they all responded the same, but all of the different
types of mice did not. I mean, I'm painting that
with a broad brush and the very vague language, but
all of that to say, like, okay, well why weren't
the mice responding in the way the people did. So
look at that as a solution maybe instead of trying
to make, as that Slate writer said, you know, make
mice just a terrible model for humans. Right, And because
(19:28):
it it seems like the research has been definitely lacking
over the past thirty years, because there are only a
dozen or so scholars who have even explored the question
of how often animal tests predict side effects in humans.
Because the thing is too if you think about it,
with a lot of these sets that are going on.
If it hurts the animal, of course it's going to
(19:49):
get shelved when the problems might actually be irrelevant in humans.
But then there are cases when it doesn't cause problems
when animals, but hurts or even kill people sometimes. Yeah,
And an example of that is that there was a
test in March two thousand six were Lendon clinicians injected
six volunteers with tiny doses of an experimental treatment for
(20:11):
rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. It had been given to mice, rats, rabbits,
and monkeys, all with no ill effects, but within minutes
of being injected, the human subjects were on the floor
writhing in pain. They all had to be hospitalized. Some
people's organ systems were shutting down. People had all sorts
of terrible things happening to them. So really it's kind
(20:34):
of it almost seems like a crap shoot. Well, and
and this is not to say that, you know, animal
testing has been totally pointless. Obviously, it's paved the way
for things like polio and hepatitis B vaccines, a medical
procedures like measuring blood pressure pacemaker's heart and lung machine
surgery techniques like those too correct and prevent bone diseases. Um.
(20:54):
But at the same time, it seems like where we
are now in two thousand thirteen, we were a long
way away from lash Lure days. And I'm going to
be curious to hear from people who are listening, who
are in you know, maybe lab technicians or in science
doing this kind of research where anial testing comes up
a lot, and wondering whether or not these kind of
(21:16):
conversations are happening, and what whether it is time to
move beyond the mouse model. I mean, I know in
a lot of ways this conversation might seem like an oversimplification,
but we take so much of what we get from
all of this for granted. I think it's worth looking
at the actual process of of what is going into
(21:39):
to keeping our products safe are and are they really
that safe because we haven't even touched on and I'm
sure people were right in about you know, the the
basic you know, kind of nasty chemicals that people keep
finding out about that are in pretty much everything surrounding it.
I mean, there's a whole lichee of cruelty free like
will will do anything if I buy cruelty free products,
(21:59):
and those are a lot of the products that say, okay,
they were not tested on animals. We have the leaping
bunny logo to signify that, you know, none of this
was tested on animals. But then there's a whole bunch
of literature out there that talks about how, well, okay,
maybe the final product wasn't tested on an animal, but
that doesn't mean all the ingredients weren't or weren't at
(22:20):
some point tested on animals. It reminds me so much
of the difficulty that has come up with the organic
label for food of people being able to say, oh,
this is organic, wink wink, and then still having some
kinds of pesticides. It's not necessarily all natural that you
can still say organic. Um, yeah, it's it's it's messy.
(22:45):
It does get messy, I can honestly, I'll admit it. Uh,
that is not something that I consider when I buy
products as to whether it's tested on animals. But I know, yeah,
but I know that it's something that a lot of
listeners are concerned about, and I do want to go
back again and do something more looking into why women
(23:05):
do tend to be more devoted to or concerned about
animal testing compared to two men out there, and whether,
I don't know, I wonder if, along the same lines
as thinking about organics for food um, whether or not
moms might be more invested in in non animal tested
products as well. So what I'm saying is, listeners, we
(23:29):
want to hear from you about this. We wanted to
do this because of the the EU band that's about
to go in place, and it'll be interesting to see
if there's any kind of ripple effect in the United States.
So send us your letters on this mom stuff. At
Discovery dot com is where you can send them. Well,
(23:51):
I've got one here from Joe in response to our
episode for Valentine's Day on whether p d A is okay,
and she had an instance when PDA was totally not
okay because she got a social kiss at work. She says,
Over the past few months, I've had four or five
meetings with a guy wanting my company to invest in
his product. We got on well, seemed to connect at
(24:13):
an innovation level, and things were looking strong. That is
until the last meeting. As I was walking him out
of my office, I extended my hand for a handshake
and got pulled in for a really awful kiss on
the cheek. The whole thing was ikey and uncomfortable and
made me question if we connected because of a shared
love for innovation or if he had additional thoughts. After
(24:34):
discussing it length with my colleagues, we've declared his behavior
creepy and unprofessional. As a woman in a male dominated industry,
I worked hard to make gender and non issue, but
this would be supplier. Probably would have never social kissed
one of my male colleagues, and I agree with that.
Joe mh. Just put up your hand really fast so
that it awkwardly kisses the palm of your hand. Dominance
(25:00):
face mush, Okay, here's the Here's one from Aaron. She
said she just finished our pro Lapsed Uterus episode Kristen
one of my face Yeah obviously a listener faith too,
for sure. Um didn't give anyone nightmares, but she says
I was frantically doing kegle exercises pretty much throughout the episode.
(25:20):
While there is not really a wrong way to do kegles,
I found myself with poor timing control, and in this
world of unrolled the toilet paper apps, I thought that
there must be an app for Cagle exercises, and of
course there was a plethora to choose from. I ended
up downloading the free Kegel cat out of sheer curiosity.
It is fantastic. You can set up how many reps,
the duration of each rep, and the rest period duration.
(25:43):
I hope you're wearing sweatbands. Erin sounds difficult, a very
anime s cat with a sweatband times or routine with
differently pitched muse It is a tag bit ridiculous, but
keeps me on track more or less because it is ridiculous.
It also features an endless kegel mode as well as
a dance mode that you'll just have to check out
for yourselves. She says, I have no words that would
(26:06):
give it frenetic absurdity justice. So thank you Aaron Cagles.
There's an app for that. So thanks to everyone who
has written into mom Stuff at discovery dot com, which
of course is where you can send your letters. You
can also find us on Facebook, leave us a message
there and like us while you're at it. Follow us
on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast, and follow us on
(26:28):
Tumbler as well, and Stuff Mom Never Told You dot
tumblr dot com. And if you want to learn more
about the science of animals and animal testing and all
of those products that we get out of those laboratories,
well you can probably guess here to go. It's how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
(26:51):
of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And why don't we kick off Caroline
with some news out of the European Union news alert?
(00:24):
Do you need an accent news alert? Very good from
the European Union. Yeah. It turns out of the European
Union banned animal testing for cosmetics. Yeah, and it's going
into effect on March eleventh, two thousand thirteen, so it's
coming right up around the corner as this podcast is
being recorded. And it took twenty three years of trying,
(00:48):
but the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments helped bring
about that band, which is a pretty huge deal. Yeah.
This they say that all personal care products, so not
just you know, powder, but shampoo for instance, all personal
care care products will be subject to the rules, meaning
that final products cannot have been tested on animals. This
(01:13):
band was actually approved ten years ago, a full decade people,
and they initially agreed to begin enforcing it in two
thousand nine. But you know how these things are. People
move slowly, but the European Union is way ahead of
the US. If we're talking about bands and things. This
is true UM, and the EU is not the only
(01:33):
group of nations thinking about this. UH. Israel, although it
is not a group, it is a singular nation and
a singular nation. In addition to the European Union, UH
is banning the important marketing and sale of any cosmetics,
toiletries or detergents whose manufacturing process involved animal testing. But
it does make exemptions for items produced for medicinal products
(01:57):
not categorized as drugs. And that new law is in
addition to a two thousand seven law that banned animal
testing in Israel's cosmetics industry. But Mark Bittman, who we've
referenced a number of times and I'm sure a lot
of our listeners are familiar with from his food writing
at the New York Times, wrote in an op ed
(02:17):
column in February two, hey don't celebrate yet. Yeah, he
says that there are plenty don't worry people, There are
plenty of questionable ingredients still in your products. And not
only that, animal testing is far from over. And so
not only are we are we not We're not quite
there yet, especially in the US, from banning all animal
(02:38):
testing or at least you know, reducing it. China, they
came around and officially mandated that animal testing happen with
cosmetics like you have to. You can't sell cosmetics in
China if they haven't been tested on animals. But that
puts them in a sticky situation because then where are
they going to sell them outside of China? You put
that lipstick on a rabbit in China. Is such a
(03:01):
good example of how this animal testing issue is such
a complex one, not just from the you know, the
starting point of public perception in the whole morality debate
surrounding animal testing, but even to how how do you
stop it when it is so common and it's so
widespread and some would argue that it has positive benefits
(03:23):
as well. Um, But before we go any further though, Caroline,
some people might be wondering, why are christ and Caroline
talking about animal testing on stuff? Mom never told you
gender aspect all women love bunnies? Is that it? Well?
I don't have any empirical data to back that up,
although I will say that of the women in this
(03:45):
room right now, I think really enjoy bunnies. Antie, our producer,
she nods, we got we got a three for three
for bunnies. Now, Um, it's true. There has been um.
First of all, a long established gender differ in perceptions
toward animal testing. And what I mean by that is
(04:05):
that survey after survey after survey has shown that women,
more often than men opposed animal testing, usually on grounds
that we don't want to inflict unnecessary harm on animals
more taking more of the moral approach to it. Um.
For instance, there was a nine six study published in
(04:25):
the journal Ethics and Behavior which found that female college
students were more likely to support animal testing restrictions and
express concern over the suffering aspect, whereas men were more
likely to argue on behalf of the potential scientific insight
glean basically saying like, well, you know, if you got
to kill a few mice to get a drug that
(04:47):
can help a lot of people, then okay, then that's fine. Yeah. Well,
there was a two thousand three Gallop poll among Americans, Britons,
and Canadians, and overall the majority of American and Canadians
thought that animal testing was more morally acceptable than Britain's did. However,
women in all countries who found that animal testing was
(05:11):
morally wrong far outnumbered the proportion of men who did so. Yeah,
so it's not just a thing of American women clutching
their their bunnies and their their mice. Um. And it's interesting,
and we don't have time to go into it in
this episode, and we should do another episode on this.
But women have always been very active with animal rights
in general, and this is something that people often trace
(05:34):
back to the progressive eras anti vivis section movement, in
which it was middle class women leading the charge in
what would be the predecessor to today's animal rights movement
that we think about and it's yeah, it's that whole
idea of the progressive eras moral accountability that the women
at the time talked about. And they also had a
large presence in the anti cruelty groups of the time
(05:57):
UM and groups like the a A vs. The American
Anti Vivisection Society. And if you want to learn more
about this, Emily Gardner has written a whole book on
this called Women and the Animal Rights Movement. And I
was looking at one section from the book and when
she was talking to twenty seven female animal rights activists
(06:18):
trying to figure out why it is that so many
women are involved in the first place in why more
men aren't involved, And she talked about how their presence
and animal rights was largely explained from just basic biological influences,
social learning, and empathy based on common oppressions, and that
whole common oppression thing is something that comes up as well,
(06:41):
where you can find so many papers on connections drawn
between animal rights support and feminism, basically saying like, you know,
we can empathize with, you know, oppression, I suppose in
a way. Yeah, And she said, uh, you know, are
the cages that can find humans and young girls any
(07:01):
different than the cages that can find animals? And I
can understand how some people might think that that is
a bit of a philosophical stretch, but I think it
would be worth us coming back to at some point
really digging into that history of why women have been
so invested in animal rights. But we thought because it
is such a gendered issue, not just on the human
(07:25):
side of whether or not you support it or oppose it,
but there's also gendered issues among test animals that we
could come back and talk about as well. The fact
that a lot of those mice, for instance, that we
think of in science labs tend to be male and
whether that's really such a good model if you're looking for, say,
(07:46):
a medication for female chronic pain things like that. So
gender is very much tied up with animal testing. Yeah, Now,
going back to more general history of animal testing, it
has really been crucial as far as testing everything from
medicines to yeah, even your shampoo. And there's a good
(08:07):
example of diabetic dogs proving the existence of insulin in
the nineteen twenties. I'm imagining dogs and lab coats. Yes,
And one critical turning point was in nineteen thirty three
when at least seventeen American women were blinded by and
one died of complications from the use of new mascara
(08:29):
lash lure. At the time, no laws governed the safety
of consumer products. So everybody's like, oh my god, mascara
is killing our women. Yeah. There was this untested chemical
in it, a pheno emma diamine that caused blisters, abscesses,
and ulcers around women's eyelashes in faces. It even did
(08:49):
you mention that it even blinded one woman and one
woman got an infection so bad that she ended up
dying from it. Um. If you want to see some
not not so fun pictures on the internet. You can
google lash lure um. But because of that, Congress passed
the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of nineteen thirty eight,
(09:12):
requiring that products be verified safe for human use before
they could be sold. Yeah, so this is where we
get the entrance of widespread animal testing based on the
premise that animals are similar enough to people. And I guess,
I mean call me ignorant. I really never thought of
thought of it that way as people being like, oh, well,
(09:34):
now we should start testing on bunnies and and mice.
Like I I never thought of it coming about that way, really,
I guess I thought of it as more of like
a lab medicine kind of thing that came later, right,
I mean, at the time, I guess it was a
safety need that they thought that they were easily fulfilling. Um.
And if we fast forward to today, if we think about, well,
(09:56):
how many how many animals are involved in all this testing.
In two thousand seven, New York Times reported that, by
conservative estimates, tens of millions of animals are killed or
maimed each year in research on safety and effectiveness of
new drugs, agricultural chemicals, and consumer products. That would include cosmetics.
(10:16):
And I should mention too that we have had some
listeners right and asking us to do on an episode
specifically on animal testing on in cosmetics. But it's such
a huge thing that they're like, finding that granular of
information is surprisingly challenging. Yeah, although there is plenty of
(10:37):
information on lash lore, which is horrifying. One thing I
think is interesting, though, is just the lack of specific
and concrete numbers. The Humane Society in two thousand nine estimated,
similarly to that New York Times estimate, that more than
twenty five million vertebrate animals are used each year in research, testing,
in education, but they say accurate and comprehensive figures for
(11:00):
the US aren't available, and they point out that the
most common animal used, which are rats and mice bread
for research, aren't actually counted in that ginormous number of
lab animals, nor are they covered under the Animal Welfare Act. Yeah,
and so if you want to if you're curious about
the types of animals using research, obviously the number one
(11:22):
it's gonna be mice than rats, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters,
farm animals, dogs, primates, and cats. I can't even imagine
how they get a cat to sit still. I mean,
that's an insensitive comment, but that's why they live in cages.
Kitty cats. They're like, no, get off of me. But
the FDA stands on animal testing and products safety is
(11:44):
a little bit flimsy because the FDA says, hey, cosmetic firms,
I guess what, we want you to substantiate the safety
of your products. We don't want a lash Lore incident
happening again. But we're not going to necessarily re wire
you to do anything. And we're going to tell you
that we don't really like animal testing, but really we
(12:05):
just want to make sure that people don't get hurt
because of your products. Yeah, the FDA has advised manufacturers
to use whatever testing is appropriate for backing up the
safety of their products, but they haven't specifically said one
way or the other, don't use animals, or you have
to use animals. They do support applicable laws that are
(12:26):
in place, and one of those that we mentioned just
a second ago is the Animal Welfare Act, which was
signed into law in nineteen sixties six. It's the only
federal law that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition,
or transport by dealers, and the Act requires that minimum
standards of care and treatment be provided for certain animals
bread for these uses. And I can imagine that that
(12:47):
people listening who are more active with animal rights would say, yeah,
minimum standards of care and treatment. I mean, that's it's
it is pretty baseline when you read about like what
minimum care entails is, you know, it's obviously like small
confined spaces and lots of food. Mice can just gorge
themselves usually no exercise, no bridge games, Sunday brunches with
(13:14):
the FAM. No. And then in two thousand to the
National Institutes of Health also got involved with overseeing the
care and use of laboratory animals with their Office of
Laboratory and Animal Welfare that's responsible for essentially administering policies
to make sure that animals involved in government funded research
are treated well. And then on top of that, getting
(13:36):
back to the whole cosmetics thing, there is a Safe
Cosmetics Act that was introduced in June two thousand eleven,
which is kind of just like a like an encouragement thing, like, hey,
do the right thing companies. And I don't think it's
been adopted yet, and I think it's still floating out
there like use safe powders. Yeah, it's it's almost like
(13:59):
the f d A the government, and I understand like
this when you're dealing with so many manufacturers manufacturing so
many products, I'm sure that it is challenging. But the
fact is it seems like the government takes merely a
good will approach, but like we like we give a
thumbs up to safe things, safe for all. Yeah, I
(14:22):
mean I think I think the arguments definitely out there
that hey, do you care more about your eyeballs not
melting off or or the bunny's eyeballs not melting off?
And that that is a question for some people. That
is a question for some people. And there are also
researchers who are busy looking for alternatives because it's not
like scientists are like, wah, I get to go to
(14:44):
look and and kill mice today or maybe somewhere I
hope not. There are alternatives being developed out there. The
John Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing developed altway,
which is the clearinghouse for information about methods, research and
resources for alternative methods. So what are the some of
(15:06):
the things out there that helps there's grasp ingredients g
r A S, which is generally recognized as safe. These
are ingredients that don't require further testing. Uh, they're also
test tube in and computer technology, so it's sort of
a loophole like they were possibly tested a long time ago,
but now we recognize that they're okay, so we don't
(15:26):
have to test them anymore. Yeah, that would be like
an argument for companies that offer organic, all natural cosmetics
and beauty products. We don't have to worry so much
about the safety because we know that these things are
natural and okay for us, unless, of course, we have
an allergic reaction. And there are other efforts underway to
(15:48):
look into in vitro methods using human cells, cell line,
or cellular components to test on that smaller cellular basis,
rather than having to test an entire living organism like
a mouse or a rat or a bird um and
then looking at genetically genetically engineered rodents for labs. Although
(16:08):
that's that seems like it's just a different iteration of
the same thing. Yeah. Well, the whole using human cells
and human tissue makes sense to me because I mean,
that's actual people data, not mice data that we somehow
have to extrapolate and try to infer things from because
a lot of times, and I mean we'll get into
this in a second, but a lot of times the
information you get from a rat or a chimpanzee or
(16:30):
a rabbit has nothing to do with how an actual
human being would react to a product, right, I mean,
and obviously, you know, the closest you could get would
be through testing on primates. But oh my goodness, if
we have you know, if there's a moral debate around
whether or not to test on mice, you can imagine
the testing on chimpan z s. That's out of the question. Um.
But yeah, Caroline, it's such a good point about the
(16:52):
fact that the number one test subject mice actually do
make for terrible human comparisons in in a lot of ways. Yeah,
this is coming from a Slate article on February thirteen
of this year. A study in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences found that among one hundred and
(17:14):
fifty potential treatments for severe inflammation that we're tested on
mice and that actually ended up helping the mice, none
of them had a positive result in human trials. Now,
they focused on inflammation just because that's what the researchers
themselves were focused on. It was interesting to read about
how what a difficult time they had getting this study published,
just because everybody's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. All
(17:36):
of our studies come from people who who practice on mice,
so we don't want to have like negative news out there.
But yeah, they found that there were not many similarities
between mouse and human data at all, including, you know,
the genes involved in each species inflammation, the molecules or
kinds of signaling that goes on inside cells, and the
correlation between mice and people. They said it was close
(17:58):
to zero. Now, in two thousand eight, there was another
paper that was also published in Penus Penus that identified
a hundred and twenty genes that are vital to human survival. Now,
of those, caroline just three turned out to also be
essential in mice. You might say, oh, that's still a
pretty significant that that's a jump. And the conclusion they
(18:21):
came to they said, it is possible that mouse models
of a large number of human diseases will not yield
sufficiently accurate information, although they might provide some basic knowledge.
So the uncomfortable conclusion that this reaches is that maybe
we need to find a better model for humans, which
is why things like testing those human cells or cell
(18:44):
lines could be a better alternative. But also there's a
whole issue raised of like, well, okay, well, let's keep
using mice if you want to use mice, but let's
look at what makes them so great at fighting certain
conditions or why didn't they suffer the inflammation that we
did under the certain condition, Because it's interesting, like all
the all the different types of humans that were tested,
(19:05):
they all responded the same, but all of the different
types of mice did not. I mean, I'm painting that
with a broad brush and the very vague language, but
all of that to say, like, okay, well why weren't
the mice responding in the way the people did. So
look at that as a solution maybe instead of trying
to make, as that Slate writer said, you know, make
mice just a terrible model for humans. Right, And because
(19:28):
it it seems like the research has been definitely lacking
over the past thirty years, because there are only a
dozen or so scholars who have even explored the question
of how often animal tests predict side effects in humans.
Because the thing is too if you think about it,
with a lot of these sets that are going on.
If it hurts the animal, of course it's going to
(19:49):
get shelved when the problems might actually be irrelevant in humans.
But then there are cases when it doesn't cause problems
when animals, but hurts or even kill people sometimes. Yeah,
And an example of that is that there was a
test in March two thousand six were Lendon clinicians injected
six volunteers with tiny doses of an experimental treatment for
(20:11):
rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. It had been given to mice, rats, rabbits,
and monkeys, all with no ill effects, but within minutes
of being injected, the human subjects were on the floor
writhing in pain. They all had to be hospitalized. Some
people's organ systems were shutting down. People had all sorts
of terrible things happening to them. So really it's kind
(20:34):
of it almost seems like a crap shoot. Well, and
and this is not to say that, you know, animal
testing has been totally pointless. Obviously, it's paved the way
for things like polio and hepatitis B vaccines, a medical
procedures like measuring blood pressure pacemaker's heart and lung machine
surgery techniques like those too correct and prevent bone diseases. Um.
(20:54):
But at the same time, it seems like where we
are now in two thousand thirteen, we were a long
way away from lash Lure days. And I'm going to
be curious to hear from people who are listening, who
are in you know, maybe lab technicians or in science
doing this kind of research where anial testing comes up
a lot, and wondering whether or not these kind of
(21:16):
conversations are happening, and what whether it is time to
move beyond the mouse model. I mean, I know in
a lot of ways this conversation might seem like an oversimplification,
but we take so much of what we get from
all of this for granted. I think it's worth looking
at the actual process of of what is going into
(21:39):
to keeping our products safe are and are they really
that safe because we haven't even touched on and I'm
sure people were right in about you know, the the
basic you know, kind of nasty chemicals that people keep
finding out about that are in pretty much everything surrounding it.
I mean, there's a whole lichee of cruelty free like
will will do anything if I buy cruelty free products,
(21:59):
and those are a lot of the products that say, okay,
they were not tested on animals. We have the leaping
bunny logo to signify that, you know, none of this
was tested on animals. But then there's a whole bunch
of literature out there that talks about how, well, okay,
maybe the final product wasn't tested on an animal, but
that doesn't mean all the ingredients weren't or weren't at
(22:20):
some point tested on animals. It reminds me so much
of the difficulty that has come up with the organic
label for food of people being able to say, oh,
this is organic, wink wink, and then still having some
kinds of pesticides. It's not necessarily all natural that you
can still say organic. Um, yeah, it's it's it's messy.
(22:45):
It does get messy, I can honestly, I'll admit it. Uh,
that is not something that I consider when I buy
products as to whether it's tested on animals. But I know, yeah,
but I know that it's something that a lot of
listeners are concerned about, and I do want to go
back again and do something more looking into why women
(23:05):
do tend to be more devoted to or concerned about
animal testing compared to two men out there, and whether,
I don't know, I wonder if, along the same lines
as thinking about organics for food um, whether or not
moms might be more invested in in non animal tested
products as well. So what I'm saying is, listeners, we
(23:29):
want to hear from you about this. We wanted to
do this because of the the EU band that's about
to go in place, and it'll be interesting to see
if there's any kind of ripple effect in the United States.
So send us your letters on this mom stuff. At
Discovery dot com is where you can send them. Well,
(23:51):
I've got one here from Joe in response to our
episode for Valentine's Day on whether p d A is okay,
and she had an instance when PDA was totally not
okay because she got a social kiss at work. She says,
Over the past few months, I've had four or five
meetings with a guy wanting my company to invest in
his product. We got on well, seemed to connect at
(24:13):
an innovation level, and things were looking strong. That is
until the last meeting. As I was walking him out
of my office, I extended my hand for a handshake
and got pulled in for a really awful kiss on
the cheek. The whole thing was ikey and uncomfortable and
made me question if we connected because of a shared
love for innovation or if he had additional thoughts. After
(24:34):
discussing it length with my colleagues, we've declared his behavior
creepy and unprofessional. As a woman in a male dominated industry,
I worked hard to make gender and non issue, but
this would be supplier. Probably would have never social kissed
one of my male colleagues, and I agree with that.
Joe mh. Just put up your hand really fast so
that it awkwardly kisses the palm of your hand. Dominance
(25:00):
face mush, Okay, here's the Here's one from Aaron. She
said she just finished our pro Lapsed Uterus episode Kristen
one of my face Yeah obviously a listener faith too,
for sure. Um didn't give anyone nightmares, but she says
I was frantically doing kegle exercises pretty much throughout the episode.
(25:20):
While there is not really a wrong way to do kegles,
I found myself with poor timing control, and in this
world of unrolled the toilet paper apps, I thought that
there must be an app for Cagle exercises, and of
course there was a plethora to choose from. I ended
up downloading the free Kegel cat out of sheer curiosity.
It is fantastic. You can set up how many reps,
the duration of each rep, and the rest period duration.
(25:43):
I hope you're wearing sweatbands. Erin sounds difficult, a very
anime s cat with a sweatband times or routine with
differently pitched muse It is a tag bit ridiculous, but
keeps me on track more or less because it is ridiculous.
It also features an endless kegel mode as well as
a dance mode that you'll just have to check out
for yourselves. She says, I have no words that would
(26:06):
give it frenetic absurdity justice. So thank you Aaron Cagles.
There's an app for that. So thanks to everyone who
has written into mom Stuff at discovery dot com, which
of course is where you can send your letters. You
can also find us on Facebook, leave us a message
there and like us while you're at it. Follow us
on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast, and follow us on
(26:28):
Tumbler as well, and Stuff Mom Never Told You dot
tumblr dot com. And if you want to learn more
about the science of animals and animal testing and all
of those products that we get out of those laboratories,
well you can probably guess here to go. It's how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
(26:51):
of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com
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