Animal testing, cosmetic product safety

Safety testing of a finished cosmetic product should be sufficient to ensure that the product does not cause irritation when used in accordance with directions, neither eUcits sensitization nor includes a sensitizer, and does not cause photoaHergic responses. Some of the methods for determining animal or human responses to cosmetics are noted in Table 3. 

Ghassemi AR, Osborne K, Kohrman M, Her R, Kanengiser B (1997) Demonstrating the ocular safety of an eye cosmetic product using alternatives to animal eye irritation tests. Toxicologist Fund Appl Toxicol Suppl 36 43... 

Besides their utilization in the production of many compounds with therapeutic, diagnostic, and immunizing applications, animal cell cultures have undoubted utility in the performance of in vitro cytotoxicity tests. They can be used for the evaluation of potential anti-neoplastic agents and assessment of the safety of various products, such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, alimentary additives, pesticides, and industrial chemical products. Cell culture systems are frequently employed in the cancer chemotherapy field, in which their potential value for viability and cytotoxicity tests is largely accepted. Animal models play an important role in toxicity testing, but the pressure to adopt in vitro tests is growing since they present considerable economical advantages over in vivo tests. The use of animal models is limited to human metabolism studies, and there are... 

The ADI is usually set one hundred times lower than the no observable effect level (NOEL). A much greater safety factor is required if there is evidence that the pesticide causes cancer in test animals. Although the Delaney Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act prevents the addition of an animal carcinogen to foods, it does not apply to pesticide residues that occur inadvertently in the production of the crop. 

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