Animal testing. 'Common sense cannot abide'
Photo: The Israeli association against animal testing
Import of animal-tested cosmetics to be banned
Education, Culture, Sports Committee pass bill banning import, marketing of animal-tested cosmetics, detergents, to be implemented by 2009. 'Common sense, norms can't allow this' says committee chair
Earlier this week the Knesset's Education, Culture and Sports Committee approved a bill prohibiting the import and marketing of animal-tested cosmetics and detergents.
This decision aligns Israeli law with that of the European Union, allowing for a period adjust until 2009, when full enforcement of the law would begin.
The bill, which passed its first reading, stipulates that any cosmetic products not directly associated with pharmaceuticals and detergents involving animal testing will be banned.
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The law also allows exceptions, to be determined by the council for animal testing in the Health Ministry, and states that until 2013, the import and marketing of products for which there is no alternatives testing would be allowed.
"I'm against animal testing for cosmetics and detergents," said MK Gideon Sa'ar (Likud), who initiated the bill. "We can't allow these products into the country. Europe has already banned such products and it's time we follow their lead."
MK Michael Melchior (Labor-Meimad), chairman of the Knesset's Education, Culture and Sports Committee, said that since this was not a matter of life and death "Jewish morals as well as common sense and social norms cannot abide animal testing, let alone for none-medicinal purposes."
Lior Levy, chair of the cosmetics division in the Manufacturers Association of Israel, called the bill "empty", saying "the manufacturers association is clearly against animal testing but you can't take parts of the European law and make it your own…you can't change things retroactively."
Levy added that the European prohibition isn't of animal testing as a whole, but of unnecessary animal testing, which can be either avoided or replaced by alternative measures.
