Health Food Safety Tested on Animals
By Bernice Hurst, Managing Director, Fine Food Network
Mixing messages, scoring an own goal and shooting oneself in the foot are all clichés that spring to mind when considering the wisdom of manufacturers who think testing new health food products on animals is a good idea.
Home Office figures in the U.K. show an increase from 862 to 4,038 experiments on animals to test food additives, sweeteners and health supplements from 2005 to 2006, according to The Times. Over the past year alone, the newspaper reports, there has been a rise of over 300 percent in laboratory experiments. It then goes on to specify which ingredients and products have been tested as well as where and on what animals.
Hospitals and universities in Glasgow, Aberdeen, London and the U.S. were cited as having researched the effects of raspberry juice, fish supplements, ginkgo biloba, cabbage and Teavigo, a purified green tea extract, on rodents as well as rabbits, guinea pigs and dogs. Gerhard Gans, director of regulatory affairs at DSM Nutritional Products, which produces Teavigo, explained that it is "sometimes necessary to use dogs, they are in some aspects more similar to humans than rats."
A spokesman for the Home Office said tests on food are needed to meet regulatory requirements. Home Office statistics show that in addition to the experiments for additives there was a 30 percent increase to 7,477 tests on animals for other foods from 2005 to 2006.
Animal welfare groups responded by saying that many of the experiments are either unnecessary or could be performed on humans. Michelle Thew, chief executive of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, said in The Times, "The rise in testing of food on animals in the race to find the next lucrative 'super-food' is a hidden scandal. People are unaware of the animal suffering behind the headlines."
Discussion questions: Overall, how sensitive do you think consumers are to animal testing on food products? As consumer demands for transparency increase, can any company promoting food products for their healthy benefits justify testing them on animals? Is such a policy too contradictory to be acceptable?