Demand for cruelty-free products is on the rise. Once a niche term found on just a handful of items in the cosmetics aisle, cruelty-free messaging is now widely recognized and indicates that the final formula or ingredient of a cosmetic product has not been tested on animals.
Momentum has been steadily gathering among the regulatory and regulated communities to move away from animal testing, but what more is needed for the cosmetic and personal care product industries to shift closer to being truly cruelty-free?
Scientific pursuits are constantly adapting to meet the needs of society, with great strides being made in animal-free assessment methods for several reasons: increased relevance to humans, bans on outdated animal tests, and modern consumer preferences for ethically produced goods.
In vitro methods, in silico tools, and advanced computer simulations have been developed in recent decades to support animal-free safety assessments, with some methods such as read-across already commonly used across the industry and increasingly accepted by regulators.
Despite the development and advancement of animal-free methods, cosmetics, and personal care, products in many parts of the world are still tested on animals. Due to conflicting legislations, even cruelty-free products may contain ingredients whose data requirements must be met via animal tests – such as when the ingredient has a use in another industry (such as industrial chemicals).
Some animal-testing methods currently used to fulfil such legislated data requirements have been around for over 50 years, for example the Draize skin and eye tests and acute toxicity tests such as the LD50, despite calls to be banned and replaced with modern, animal-free methods.
To promote the ease of use of animal-free methods, more effort is required to improve the regulatory acceptance of integrated methods of testing and assessment that combine different types of information to fulfil legislated data requirements. In order to further propel the use of animal-free methods, consistent and accessible educational initiatives must run in tandem with scientific advancements and regulatory acceptance.
In many cases, combinations of animal-free methods can viably replace traditional methods, and there is a need for a global educational initiative to ensure that all interested parties are up to date with the practical knowledge required to support the wider shift towards cruelty-free test methods.
Increased familiarity among regulated and regulatory communities with animal-free methods (and the information they generate) will result in greater confidence in utilizing these approaches for regulatory decision-making.
To this end, the Animal Free Safety Assessment Collaboration (AFSA) has launched an online Master Class to train scientists in animal-free safety assessment.¹ Hailed as a worldwide gamechanger, the course was created by dozens of global experts in cosmetic safety science and features real-world case studies to walk users through the animal-free safety assessment.
The curriculum has attracted over 1,350 participants from nearly 70 countries since the release of the first module in 2023. Safety assessors, regulators, compliance specialists, SMEs, CROs, NGOs, and other parties are all active participants of the AFSA Masterclass, highlighting the wide-ranging global interest in animal-free predictive approaches.
Dr Catherine Willett, Senior Director, Science & Regulatory Affairs at Humane Society International, highlights that moving away from animal testing can be “challenging” for both consumers and companies. The AFSA Master Class makes it easier for regulators to “effectively evaluate emerging methods” and for companies to replace rats, rabbits, and guinea pigs with “advanced non-animal models”, adds Willett.
Animal-free safety assessment is based upon the principles of next-generation risk assessment (NGRA) – an exposure-led, hypothesis-driven risk assessment approach that integrates existing knowledge with in silico, in chemico, and in vitro approaches to address human safety.²
Conceptually, NGRAs do not differ greatly from historical animal-based approaches. Both rely on measurements of exposure, as well as an estimation of a chemical’s intrinsic bioactivity to help determine the risk associated with a particular use or exposure.
There are two main differences: firstly, NGRAs typically consider exposure estimates from an earlier stage of the assessment to either make an early safety determination or to help design tailored testing strategies to gather the information required for the assessment.
Secondly, in an NGRA, a chemical’s bioactivity is estimated via combinations of predictive and non-animal data that address regulatory concerns, as opposed to conducting a standard set of animal tests for every chemical, as is the case for historical animal-based approaches.
The AFSA Master Class helps users familiarize themselves with the core principles of NGRA in the introductory module, and following modules describe each element of the NGRA approach in greater detail, with several case examples from global industry contributors.
Modules cover consumer exposure, predictive chemistry, dosimetry, internal exposure, and many more key concepts. The final module describes the current regulatory landscape for chemicals and cosmetics.
As we strive towards a truly cruelty-free industry, all interested parties should have access to education and training initiatives to develop their knowledge on the animal-free tools available. The AFSA Master Class aims to build confidence in new approaches and is designed to increase the capacity to perform animal-free safety assessments of cosmetics and ingredients globally.
The AFSA Collaboration is a global coalition of corporate, non-profit, and data science leaders working to advance acceptance and use of animal-free safety science as a gold standard across regulatory frameworks worldwide.
Learn more about the current initiatives or to join the coalition and become an AFSA partner.
References
1. AFSA Collaboration. Risk Assessment Process.
2. AFSA Collaboration. AFSA Master Class.