DuPont, Honeywell Accused of Unnecessary Animal Cruelty; Doctors, Animal Protectionists Charge Companies with Violating EPA Agreement

3/25/2002

From: Simon Chaitowitz of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, 202-686-2210 ext. 309 or simonc@pcrm.org; http://www.pcrm.org

WASHINGTON, March 25 -- A coalition of health, animal protection and environmental organizations is accusing DuPont and Honeywell of unnecessary cruelty for planning to poison more than 1,000 animals in tests with cyclohexanol, a chemical used in nylon, plastic, and paint manufacturing. Long suspected of causing reproductive and other serious health problems, the toxic substance has already has undergone extensive tests. The newly proposed experiments violate an agreement the companies made with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the coalition in October 1999 to avoid duplicative animal testing. The coalition is headed by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).

The cyclohexanol debate is the latest development in an ongoing controversy over the EPA's High Production Volume Challenge, a gargantuan program promoting toxicity testing on 2,800 industrial chemicals.

"DuPont and Honeywell will put animals through shockingly cruel tests, blatantly ignoring the terms of an agreement they made to minimize unnecessary animal testing," says PCRM staff scientist Nicole Cardello, M.H.S., who recently reviewed the companies' proposed test plan. Cardello filed a criticism with the EPA on behalf of the coalition last week.

"There is already strong evidence that cyclohexanol is a health threat," Cardello said. "We can only surmise that DuPont and Honeywell want to retest this chemical in hopes of producing conflicting results -- data that might cast doubt on its toxicity."

In the tests, experimenters will force confined rats to inhale massive doses of the suspected poison, and then kill and dissect them.

DuPont has an especially poor record within the HPV program, says Cardello. Previously, it proposed painful animal tests on adipic acid, a food additive the Food and Drug Administration already deems safe for human consumption.

PCRM argues that the HPV program, estimated to involve more than 100,000 animals' lives, violates federal law because it doesn't allow for meaningful public input. The organization will file a lawsuit against the EPA in April.

Last year, PCRM published a comprehensive report proving many of the proposed animal tests are redundant and unnecessary, and will fail to protect the environment or public health. At a chemical industry conference on March 13, an EPA official corroborated some of these charges when she admitted duplicative testing is a problem and called the program "a mess."

PCRM believes that animal tests are not the best predictors of dangers to humans and that alternative testing methods are more reliable. Furthermore, significant human exposure informationmore pertinent than that gleaned from animal tests -- already exists for many chemicals as they've been in use for years. Despite this abundance of valuable data, the EPA has been slow to regulate risky products and has not banned a single industrial chemical known to be toxic in more than a decade.

Founded in 1985, PCRM promotes preventive medicine, especially good nutrition, and higher standards in medical research, education, and practice.

------ Editors Note: Local spokespeople available for interviews.