WRITTEN QUESTION E-2517/97 by Gerhard Schmid (PSE) to the Commission (22 July 1997)

Subject: Alternative to animal testing

The Fraunhofer Working Party on Toxicology and Environmental Medicine (ATU) in Hamburg, together with the Techno Medical Gesellschaft für medizinische Technologie mbH in Castro-Rauxel, have developed a process in which offal (pigs' tails) is used for testing cosmetics, thus making animal testing unnecessary.

1. Is the Commission aware of this process?

2. Has it supported the project with European funding?

3. What is its view of the development results?

4. Does it consider that animal testing in the cosmetics industry will become unneccessary as a result?

5. Will it take this development into account in future regulations?

Answer given by Mr Bangemann on behalf of the Commission (10 September 1997)

Hitherto the Commission has been unaware of the scope for using pig's tails as substitutes for experiments on live animals in order to test the effectiveness of cosmetic products or their ingredients. It has therefore not been in a position, by granting Community funding, to support the development of similar processes which could prove to be alternative methods for the future. True to its well-known position regarding this matter the Commission is keeping itself informed of any developments in this area which would spark alternative methods with a view to their scientific validation by the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM), and then to their acceptance by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in accordance with the spirit of Council Directive 93/35/EEC of 14 June 1993 amending, for the sixth time, Directive 76/768/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to cosmetic products ((OJ L 151, 23.6.1993. )) which is aimed at the banning of cosmetic-product experiments on animals.