Animal Testing

For a detailed explanation of animal testing and campaigns you can join to have your voice heard please visit Choose Cruelty Free Australia (CCF) http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/index.html

CCF fund many anti-vivisection campaigns and print a Preferred Products List booklet (available for free in store at Cruelty Free WA) detailing the many local Australian companies who do not test on animals or pay another company to test on their behalf. CCF relies on donations to continue their vital work.

CCF are currently running a postcard campaign asking the Minister for Health and Aging (Nicola Roxon) to follow the lead of the EU and ban products that are tested on animals. These postcards can be ordered from the CCF website or found in store at Cruelty Free WA.

Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) is the largest animal testing lab in Europe and uses a large variety of animals including monkeys, rats, guinea pigs, dogs (specifically Beagles) and cats. HLS has approximately 70 000 animals on site and has been documented breaking many laws including fraud and committing terrible acts of animal cruelty. For more information visit http://www.shac.net/

A full list of HLS customers can be found here: http://www.shac.net/action/customers/clients.html

Well-known Companies that Test on Animals

This is not a complete list (we will continue to update it) but it will allow you to make a more informed choice in your purchases.

Many companies who fund animal testing attempt to placate the public by stating half truths on their websites. A typical example reads, "We do not test the final product on animals." This is probably accurate, but in many cases individual ingredients are tested.

There is no law governing the use of the term 'No Animal Testing' and companies have been known to make this claim as a marketing gimmick; Ecover is a classic example. Ecover had a staunch no animal testing policy for many years and had even earned the highly prized Vegan Society logo - a sunflower with the word 'Vegan'. In 2007 Ecover began using rabbit blood (from rabbit farming) and Daphnia in experiments. Daphnia are small crustacea reaching up to nearly 1cm in length and are commonly called 'Water 'Fleas' although they are not fleas; the name refers to their swimming style only. Daphnia have a circulatory and nervous system and many argue that if placing a live lobster in boiling water is cruel then so is testing on Daphnia and size should play no role. The Vegan Society stripped Ecover of their logo in a move that caused a great deal of controversy around the world. To this day Ecover continues to defend their actions stating that animal experimentation applies to vertebrates only and still uses the phrase, 'No Animal Testing'.

Cruelty Free WA takes all form of animal experimentation seriously. Although the matter of using small crustacea and blood is still being debated, we believe that drawing the line at any experimentation involving any living creature from the animal kingdom provides a straight forward guideline for our customers and allows them to make informed choices.

Companies are always buying and merging with each other, if you suspect that any of the products we stock are now on the 'bad' list please let us know.

The vivisection photos on this page came from The Animals' Voice picture database.

Lion Nathan National Foods Pty Ltd (commonly known as National Foods)

This company is owned by a Japanese company called Kirin Holdings Company Ltd. A subsidiary of Kirin Holdings' pharmaceutical division is Hematech, who breeds cattle for human antibody production and has programs funded by the USA Department of Defence. In a blow to many vegans, National Foods owns the popular soy milk Vitasoy.

Subsidiaries of National Foods are:

National Foods own a wide range of foods. The most common are:

Procter & Gamble Company

Procter & Gamble (P&G) is considered by many animal organisations as one of the worst companies for animal testing. Subsidiaries of P&G are Wella and Gillette. For more information please visit http://www.boycottpandg.co.uk/

P&G manufactures Iams and Eukanuba brand of pet food and has been condemned by animal groups world wide for its animal testing practices. According to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) an undercover investigation revealed that dogs [test subjects] had their vocal cords cut to prevent them from whining and barking inside their filthy concrete cages; some dogs were in these cages for up to six years. For more information please visit the Uncaged website detailing the atrocities committed by Iams in search of the almighty dollar http://www.uncaged.co.uk/iams01.htm and the PETA website http://www.iamscruelty.com/

Companies are always changing their brands; for a full and up to date list visit the P&G brand site http://www.pg.com/en_US/brands/all_brands.shtml

Procter & Gamble brands are:

Novartis

Novartis is a customer of HLS where some of the worst atrocities are committed.

The list of Novartis brands is too long to list here and includes many pharmaceutical drugs. The main brands are:

Colgate Palmolive

This company mainly produces cleaning agents and personal care items, however it also manufactures food goods, leisure items, industrial supplies and is a world leader in oral care products. The Hill's Science Diet brand of pet food has brought the company into ill repute due to its excessive and unnecessary animal testing regime. The main brands are:

Mars Incorporated

Many people would not believe that a company that manufactures lollies would have any need to test on animals; unfortunately this is not the case. Mars recently funded an experiment on rodents to determine the effects of chocolate ingredients on blood vessels. For a more in depth description of the various experiments funded by Mars, including one that forced mice to swim in white paint before being dissected, please visit http://www.marscandykills.com/

Mars has also been criticised for exacerbating the problems of child labour by refusing to enter into agreements to use fair trade cocoa.

Subsidiaries of Mars are:

The main brands are:

Sc Johnson (or Johnson's, Johnson and Johnson Services Inc)

Johnson and Johnson have built a reputation as a caring and family owned business, but we know better. This company has its fingers in a lot of pies and the full list is too long for this page. Its brand Splenda was tested at the notorious testing facility HLS where it was responsible for the deaths of 12800 individual animals. For information pertaining to these tests please visit Biteback http://www.biteback.be/news/detail.php?news_id=2019

Johnson and Johnson have also been criticised for anti-trust practices (settled out of court) and co-market some brands with fellow animal abuser Pfizer.

Johnson and Johnson's main brands are:

Pfizer

Listed by Multinational Monitor as one of the 10 Worst Corporations, Pfizer has recently (October 2009) bought 100% of Wyeth corporation (another horrible abuser of animals). Pfizer is a long time customer of HLS and one of the worlds largest manufactures of pharmaceutical drugs. It is also a large producer of the world's animal care products (most of which are used in food producing animal farms) and supply veterinary products for dogs, cats and horses. A full list of products can be found here http://www.pfizer.com/products/

Subsidiaries of Pfizer are:Mother and Baby

Major brands are:

Nestlé

Nestlé is high on the boycott list of both human and animal rights organisations. Nestle has been criticised for its irresponsible marketing of infant formula that lead to the death of young children, exploiting workers, continuing to buy cocoa from the Ivory Coast despite the use of forced child labour and promoting bottled water which turns water into a profit driven commodity in poor communities. Nestle continues to test its pet food products on animals despite the pain and suffering it inflicts. Nestle owns 30% of cosmetics and beauty company L'Oréal (yet another animal testing company, see below) and co-markets with the Coca Cola company who also have highly questionable ethics.

Major Nestlé brands are:

Pet Care Products:

L'Oréal

L'Oréal is the world's largest cosmetics and beauty care manufacturer and owns 100% of The Body Shop, a company with a strong 'no animal testing' reputation. L'Oréal claim that although they will continue to test on animals The Body Shop will still be animal testing free. However, any money procured by The Body Shop funds L'Oréal's animal testing. L'Oréal's brands include:

Palm Oil

Palm oil is a versatile plant product often used in soaps, detergents, personal care, bio-fuel and food products such as spreads, biscuits and imitation dairy products. Palm oil and palm kernel oil come from the Palm Oil Plant or Elaeis guineensis. This is different to coconut oil which comes from the Coconut Palm or Cocos nucifera.

The planting and harvesting of palm oil in Sumatra, Malaysia and Borneo is causing massive deforestation and killing many forms of wildlife including Tigers, Gibbons and Orangutans. Many people are avoiding products containing palm oil and petitioning companies to stop manufacturing products containing palm oil.

We attempt to source our products, be they soy, wakame, cotton or palm oil from sustainable and ethical sources. For example, Orgran is an Australian owned company that buys Australian grown palm oil. This helps local Australian farmers and does not add to the disgusting deforestation and unnecessary animal deaths in places such as Borneo.

According to a recent report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), only 1% of the world's sustainable palm oil has been bought. This makes sustainable palm oil cheap and easy to obtain. Many of the world's large palm oil users, such as fast food chains, have pledged to buy sustainable palm oil but have not done so.

We encourage people to only buy products made with sustainable palm oil and to contact companies and ask them to either swap away from, or buy sustainably produced, palm oil.

Cruelty Free WA