Is Your Sunscreen Safe for Humans and Animals?

Many sunscreens, lawn-care treatments, and other products used to make your summer safe and enjoyable are not safe for animals. Often, these products have been tested using painful animal experiments—even though such tests don’t guarantee the products are safe for humans. But Congress is now considering legislation that would require the adoption of crucial reforms to protect human health and encourage the development of more nonanimal chemical tests. Your help is needed.

As a result of work done by PCRM scientists over the past year, bills recently introduced to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act could address the limitations of animal-based toxicity tests now used to evaluate a chemical’s potential risks to public health and the environment.

The draft House bill and the introduced Senate bill, the Safe Chemicals Act, S. 3209, include landmark provisions that would reduce and eventually eliminate the use of animals over the long term. A new PCRM fact sheet lists several positive elements in the Safe Chemicals Act, including:

• encouraging the use of scientifically acceptable nonanimal methods that maximize the use of existing data;
• directing the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct and fund the development of new nonanimal methods; and
• providing reasonable criteria for waiving animal testing requirements in appropriate cases.

However, several elements of the bill should be improved. To ensure effective assessment of chemicals, protect public health, and move testing toward effective nonanimal methods, the bill should do the following:

• require the use of nonanimal methods where appropriate;
• direct Congress to appropriate a specific dollar amount to further the development of nonanimal testing methods; and
• specify provisions for the sharing of data between governments to prevent duplicative testing.

To read the complete fact sheet and help PCRM ensure that Congress funds the development and requires the use of nonanimal testing methods, visit ReformToxicityTesting.org.