Green Living
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Question about scientific research
When studies are done on how chemicals (or anything for that matter) effect lab animals, do they use an amount proportionate to what a human would ingest?
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
Re: Question about scientific research
There's no standard, its all over the place, and its usually more.
I think typically they start with small animals (mice) bc they are cheap. They start with huge does (tens to hundreds of times more than what would be typical) and see if that causes cancer, or whatever.
Then they go to bigger animals (dogs, pigs, etc) and smaller doses, if funding allows.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
I didn't know that. I thought I read somewhere that the EU was banning animal testing for cosmetics. I wonder if the German law for chemicals includes cosmetic ingredients and how it all works together.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
I believe they use mice because they have similar organ structures to ours. I know they use baby bunnies to test cosmetics and detergents because their eyes are similiar to ours, therefore they replicate human sensitive to allergens and chemicals.
As far as the amount, I'm not aware of any guidelines for animal testing so the amount of whatever they're testing varies widely from study to study. Chemical proponents use that to their advantage, like Monsanto in the study of organ failure in mice fed GMO corn. Monsanto claims that the level in the study is way more than a human would ever ingest. This approach bugs the &^%$ out of me because all large species that ingest other species (cows eat GMO corn, humans eat cows and drink milk) biaccumulate toxins in their bodies. So GMO may not be at a high enough level to cause organ failure in a human as quickly as it did in the mice, but the toxicity builds up in human tissue like the liver when it can cause organ failure after several decades of exposure. Monsanto clearly isn't accounting for that. Bastards.
I'm not scientifically minded so some of the details in articles about these tests are over my head. I felt like I was missing some critical piece of the argument and this must have been it. Thank you!
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
Not really. Most phramacutical lab mice are $10,000 or more a pop because they come from a specific genetic lines (sort of like a control when you a comparing research from one test to another). When you get into the transgenic mice some are a million dollars each!
The benefit of mice is that they are small and easy to take care of.
I'll try not to get on my soapbox here...but there is a test standard, I believe it is called the LD50 test (LD=lethal dose) that is used in quite a bit of chemical toxicity testing on animals. It is, well, frankly, disgusting.
Anyway, I have been on a quest to eliminate animal tested products from my house for several years and (though I'm certain I have slipped up from time to time) as far as I know Mary Kay, Avon, and Burt's Bees are cruelty-free cosmetics (PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong), and Method is a safe bet for household stuff.
Anyone know of any other widely available cruelty-free household products/cosmetics? Reno isn't super great for specialty stuff...
While PETA is by no means my favorite organization, the do have a pretty comprehensive list of 'cruelty-free' companies. This does not mean eco-friendly, just 'cruelty-free'. I haven't looked at it in a while, but the last time I did it seems pretty well maintained.