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Eye irritants are chemicals that cause reversible eye damage, while substances that cause permanent eye damage are considered serious irritants or corrosives.
A number of government agencies require or are requesting the provision of eye irritation / corrosion data for products such as cosmetics, pesticides and pharmaceuticals before they are sold or shipped to predict whether they will cause harm if they come into contact with people … eyes. In the United States, these agencies include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the FDA, and the Department of Transportation.
Animal tests
Draize’s eye irritation and corrosion test was conducted back in the 1940s. In this test, substances are applied to the eyes of live rabbits. Technicians then subjectively assess lesions, which may include inflammation, ulcers, bleeding, puffy eyelids, irritated and clouded eyes, or even blindness, at regular intervals of up to two weeks. There is no need to give the animals any pain relievers during this lengthy process.
Evidence suggests that the Draize rabbit test gives varying results. In fact, different labs – and even different rounds of testing in the same lab – often give different results. In addition, the results of the Draize eye irritation and corrosion test do not necessarily apply to humans due to the anatomical and physiological differences between human and rabbit eyes. For example, rabbits have a third eyelid, but humans do not.
Non-animal tests
Several methods can be used to replace the unreliable Draize rabbit eye test, many of which are recognized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an alliance of countries promoting international harmonization in the testing, labeling and regulation of chemicals. For example, chemicals can be applied to models of the cornea of human cells, and then any damage to the cells themselves or to the barriers between cells is assessed. Another test uses a fluorescent dye to measure the ability of a chemical to penetrate the hard layer of cells, and another test assesses the chemical’s ability to damage the molecular structures in the eye that are necessary for proper function.
In 2021, PETA scientists and their fellow experts from government agencies and private laboratories published a paper showing that scientific methods that do not use live rabbits reflect human biology as much as the rabbit test – if not more – and that their results were more consistent than the rabbit test. The authors concluded that new methods must be adopted immediately to replace the rabbit test. These testing methods, which do not use live rabbits, are already accepted for testing certain types of substances, and PETA scientists will work to ensure that they are accepted globally for all tests.
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