Despite claims from corporate giant Procter & Gamble (P&G) that it tests products on animals only as a last resort and only when required by law, published scientific papers show that P&G took an already approved ingredient in Herbal Essences shampoo - butylparaben - and force-fed it in massive doses to pregnant animals.

Evidence uncovered by the British animal rights group Uncaged shows that P&G force-fed butylparaben - a preservative used for decades in personal care products - to pregnant rats to see if it harms their developing offspring.

The experiment killed 1,300 animals (100 pregnant mothers and their 1,200 newborns) subjecting the mothers to stressful force-feeding for approximately three weeks, after which they were killed in carbon dioxide gas chambers. Experimenters then removed the slowly dying babies from their mothers’ bodies and killed them.

Information on the safety of butylparaben, one of a class of products known as parabens, has already been amply demonstrated at least twenty years earlier. Many of the animals used by P&G for this experiment received massive doses of butylparaben, which, according to the researcher in charge of the study “far exceeds human exposure estimates.”

These tests are not required by any law, and detailed information on this ingredient has been widely available for many years.

IDA is joining with the British group, Uncaged, to support an international day of action to shed light on P&G’s unconscionable animal testing.

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