Transition towards replacing animal tests in safety assessment of cosmetics and chemicals: a combined TIS-MLP framework

Abstract

The urgency of the transition to replace animal tests in safety assessment of chemicals and cosmetics was triggered by societal resistance to animal testing (Rowan, 2007) and the scientific dispute concerning the value of animal testing (Olson et al., 2000). Since the 1980s the European Union (EU) has been developing policies to reduce an-imal studies. However, these policies have not been very successful, since only a few regulatory safety assessments in animals (among which the Draize eye test, skin senti-sation test, pyrogenicity test and batch potency test tetanus vaccine) have been (partly) replaced by innovative methods. These few 'successful' replacement processes were laborious and took decades.