During the summer of 2022, news broke of a beagle breeding facility in Virginia that was being forced to close due to its repeated neglect of the dogs. The closure of the Envigo breeding facility in Cumberland, Virginia led to one of the largest dog rescue operations ever carried out by the Humane Society of the United States. Envigo describes itself as “a market-leading provider of a broad range of standard research models to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, government, academia and other life science organizations.” What that means in layman’s terms is that they breed and sell animals for research purposes. At the Cumberland, Virginia facility, Envigo bred beagles to be sold to research labs all over the world.
An undercover investigation by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), led to the discovery of atrocious living conditions, repeated instances of neglect and abuse, and numerous federal animal rights violations at the Cumberland facility. Starting in July of 2022, the Humane Society and its partner organizations began the daunting task of removing almost 4,000 beagles from the Envigo facility and transferring them to shelters across the country where they would soon be placed for adoption. I’ve not allowed myself to fully read about the atrocities found in the Envigo facility, but The Guardian published an excellent piece detailing the horrible conditions and rescue operations if you’re interested.
I’ve always had a soft spot for beagles. I had a beagle growing up, and the first dog I owned as an adult was a beagle. So, obviously, I jumped at the chance to adopt one of the Envigo beagles, and that’s how Biscuit joined the family!
But this post isn’t about Biscuit or the other Envigo beagles that now have happy, healthy homes, and it isn’t even about the horrible conditions those beagles faced at Envigo. This post is about something bigger. This post is about why facilities like the Envigo Cumberland facility exist at all, and what we can all do to close them for good.
The Prevalence of Animal Testing
For years, I walked up and down the aisles of the supermarket, obliviously filling my shopping cart with cosmetics, shampoos, skin care products, toothpastes, detergents, cleaners, and other household products that were needlessly tested on animals. I simply had no idea that animal testing was still used for simple household products. But when the Envigo story broke in 2022, I started doing a little research. I learned that not only were animals still used in drug testing, but they are also widely used by manufacturers to test the safety of cosmetics and other products even though there are other, non-animal ways of testing for safety that are arguably more accurate and even less expensive. Currently, almost 80% of all cosmetic brands use some form of animal testing in their products, or they purchase from suppliers that use animal testing.
That is simply not acceptable to me.
So I made a decision to stop buying those products. Now, I only buy products that are certifiably cruelty-free, meaning that the brand itself doesn’t test its finished products or ingredients on animals, either for sale in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world, and it doesn’t buy from suppliers that do either.
Supporting Cruelty-Free Brands
There are several resources I use to make sure that the products I purchase are cruelty-free. You can’t simply rely on what the label says. The phrases “cruelty-free” and “not tested on animals” are not regulated, so brands are free to use that language on labels even if it is misleading. For example, some brands may not test their finished products on animals in the U.S., so they use the language “not tested on animals” on their label. But this is misleading because that brand may still purchase from suppliers who use animal testing. Or, that brand may not test their finished product on animals for sale in the U.S., but they may do so in order to sell that product in a country that still requires animal testing, such as China.
So to ensure that the products I purchase are genuinely cruelty-free at every step, I make sure that the products are certified by one of the following: (1) the Leaping Bunny Program; (2) PETA’s Beauty with Bunnies Program; or (3) the Beagle Freedom Project’s Cruelty Cutter App. These three organizations use specific criteria to ensure that the products they certify never, ever rely on animal testing of any kind. You can know that a product is certified cruelty-free by Leaping Bunny or PETA by looking for their stamps on the product’s label.
These two organizations are great resources, but there are products that are cruelty-free that just haven’t sought certification from either. So when shopping, if I don’t see either logo on a label, I scan the product’s barcode with the Beagle Freedom Project’s Cruelty Cutter app. You can download the app for your iPhone or Android here.
Another great resource, especially when searching for new brands or shopping online, is Cruelty-Free Kitty. This website has an expansive list of cruelty-free brands to purchase and brands to avoid, and all brands featured on the website have been thoroughly vetted using specific criteria to ensure not a single animal is harmed when bringing the product to market.
Being smart, conscious, cruelty-free shoppers is the single biggest thing we can do right now to stop the needless suffering of animals in labs. This may not help the animals bred at Envigo for medical research purposes, but it will help countless others that are bred solely for product research. To me, there’s no particular cosmetic or household product that is worth harming an animal, especially when there are ways to bring your product to market without doing so. So I’ll continue to support only those brands that share my values, and hopefully one day, we can eliminate animal testing in the U.S. for good.