Taking a sterner view on the use of animals in testing of cosmetics, the Centre will amend the Drugs & Cosmetics Rules to prohibit the animal testing and also to ban the import of cosmetics tested on animals.

The health ministry has decided to amend the rules after the issues were raised by some Members of the Parliament and activists,  and as per the efforts to harmonise the standards in line with the European Union directive in March this year, making the testing of cosmetics on animals completely illegal.

The Government received representations from Humane Society International, India, Rama Chandra Khuntia, MP, and Congress leader Rud Raraju Padmaraju for a ban on the import and sale of cosmetic products in India where either the final formulation or any raw ingredient had been subject to animal testing by or on behalf of the manufacturers.

The European Union had in 2009 initiated measures for banning marketing of cosmetics tested on animals. In March, 2013 EU has imposed prohibition of the marketing of the cosmetics and their ingredients which have been tested on animals irrespective of the fact that whether alternate method in place of toxicity study to prove the safety of the cosmetic products is in place or not. However, other countries of the world including USA, Australia, Japan etc have not yet made such provision which prohibits the marketing of cosmetics tested on animals.

It is learnt that the health ministry has already started the process to amend the rules to ban the use of animals in testing of cosmetics manufactured in the country and got the approval from the Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) in this regard to amend the D&C Rules.

The call for banning use of animal for cosmetic test was first made by activist leader Meneka Gandhi, MP. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which prepare standards for cosmetics, in the meeting of the Cosmetics Sectional Committee involving DCGI, hence decided to amend the Indian Standards (IS 4011:1997-Method of Test for Safety Evaluation of Cosmetics).

Thus amendment was made to make sure that “the manufacturer of cosmetics products containing novel ingredients may submit the safety data based on alternative non-animal test methods for to the concerned State Licensing Authority for their consideration and approval.”

Now the health ministry will make necessary amendment to the D& C Rules to effect the ban. A new Rule (148-C) will be inserted in this regard, specifying that “Animals shall not be used for testing of cosmetics,” sources said.