11 February 2022
Newsdesk
Long-time animal ally Sir Paul McCartney is throwing his weight behind the Save Cruelty-Free Cosmetics European Citizens’ Initiative, a campaign started by international PETA entities as well as Dove, The Body Shop, and more than 100 animal protection organisations to call on the European Union (EU) to uphold and strengthen its ban on animal testing for cosmetics.
McCartney’s full statement follows:
We all thought the battle was over and that cosmetics tests on animals in Europe were a thing of the past, but sadly, that’s not the case. The European Chemicals Agency continues to demand the use of thousands of rabbits, rats, fish, and other animals in cosmetics ingredients tests. But you can help put a stop to it. No animal should suffer for beauty, so if you’re an EU citizen, please go to savecrueltyfree.eu and sign the European Citizens’ Initiative to protect the ban. Signing the petition takes only a minute – and it will help save lives.
As McCartney references, thousands of animals are still being forced to inhale or ingest cosmetics ingredients in tests required by the European Chemicals Agency, and the EU’s animal testing ban – which set a global precedent – has come under threat because of new requirements for avoidable animal tests for ingredients that have been safely used for years.
The ingredients flagged for additional testing are marketed globally and will therefore impact everyone’s ability to buy cruelty-free products, unless we act now. To be successful, the initiative needs the support of 1 million EU citizens – regardless of where they live – so this message must be shared around the world.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
