tissuecultureinsteadofperformingDraizetestsonrabbitsto
determinewhetherits productscandamagethehumaneye.
Noxell’s decision was part of a steady movement toward
alternatives by
majorcosmetics,toiletries,andpharmaceuticalcorporations,
initiated and constantly spurred on by the Coalition to
AbolishtheLD50and DraizeTests.^47 Yearsofhard work
paidoffin 1989 whenAvon,Revlon,Fabergé,Mary Kay,
Amway,Elizabeth Arden, MaxFactor,Christian Dior,and
severalsmallcompaniesannouncedthattheywereending,or
atleastsuspending,allanimalexperimentation.Inthesame
year the European Commission, which is responsible for
safety testing in ten nations of the European Community,
announcedthatitwouldacceptalternativestotheLD50and
Draizetests, andinvited allOECDnations(agroupwhich
includes the U.S. and Japan) to work toward developing
common alternative safety tests. Both the LD50 and the
Draizetesthavenowbeenbannedbygovernmentregulation
inVictoriaandNewSouthWales,Australia’smostpopulous
statesandthestatesin whichmost animalexperimentation
has been carried out.^48
IntheUnitedStates,momentumisalsobuildingontheissue
of dissection in high schools. The stubborn resistance to
dissection of one Californian high school student, Jenifer
Graham—and her insistence on not losing marks for her
conscientiousobjection—ledtothepassage,in1988,ofthe
California Students’ Rights Bill, which gives students in
Californianprimaryandsecondaryschoolstherighttorefuse
todissectwithoutsufferingapenalty.Similarbillsarenow
being introduced in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine,
Hawaii, and several other states.