Europe-wide protests against companies Eisai and Ipsen

July 2016,- The European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE), an alliance of leading European animal organisations will be holding a Week of Action across Europe for the fifth year to protest against the continued use of mice in cruel poisoning tests for botulinum toxin, (commonly known as botox). Organizations from Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK are joining the protest.

Each batch of botox is tested in the controversial LD50 (Lethal Dose) poisoning test. Groups of mice are injected in the abdomen with different dosages of botulinum toxin in order to find the dose which kills half the animals. This involves appalling suffering for the animals who suffocate slowly through muscle paralysis while fully conscious.

This year’s Europe-wide protests target the Japanese company Eisai which has branches in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland and the UK. The German contract laboratory LPT in Hamburg received regulatory approval to conduct LD50 tests to examine Eisai’s botulinum toxin product NeuroBloc on 60,000 mice in 2014, and 30,000 mice in 2015. The UK based company Ipsen is also still using mice to test its botox products.

Continuous public protests have led to the manufacturers Allergan and Merz using humane cell-based tests since 2011 and 2015 respectively, replacing most of their cruel LD50 animal tests.

Occasionally used for medical purposes, the bacterial poison botulinum toxin is best known for its cosmetic use to temporarily reduce facial lines and wrinkles. Although since March 2013 there has been an EU ban on the manufacture and import of cosmetics that have been tested on animals, botox is not included because it is a product that is injected and not applied to the skin (the definition of a ‘cosmetic’). This loophole in EU law permits hundreds of thousands of mice to be used in cruel tests for the substance worldwide every year.

Ong ADDA and their European partners in the ECEAE are calling upon the companies Eisai and Ipsen to stop these cruel animal tests immediately.

Carmen Méndez, President of Ong ADDA: “It is totally unacceptable that sentient animals are subjected to an agonizing death for a product widely used for cosmetic purposes despite a non-animal alternative being available. We urge the authorities and companies, Eisai and Ipsen to act now to ensure these cruel botox animal tests become a thing of the past.”

Details about the local action: Signature collection in Rambla Catalunya nº 45, Barcelona, from 11:00 am to 7:30 pm

Backgroug information about botox: http://www.eceae.org/en/what-we-do/campaigns/botox