Seventh Generation Reverses Course
Can tens of thousands of caring consumers be wrong? Apparently, Seventh Generation doesn’t think so. When PETA alerted our members and supporters that Seventh Generation—a company that you had relied on as a cruelty-free stalwart for years—was aggressively pushing legislation that would result in the deaths of tens of millions of animals in chemical toxicity tests, you let the company know in no uncertain terms that you were striking its products off your shopping list. Your feedback worked: Seventh Generation has reversed course and will now lobby for the use of non-animal testing methods.
PETA and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) had repeatedly asked Seventh Generation to support legislative language calling on Congress to modernize chemical toxicity testing by requiring that non-animal methods be used whenever possible. This is a win-win proposition, since non-animal testing methods are faster, cheaper, and more reliable, thereby better protecting human health while saving animals’ lives. Seventh Generation had continually rebuffed our attempts to share information on modern chemical testing methods, even going so far as to state that efforts to reduce the number of animals poisoned and killed in cruel tests were “not really compatible” with Seventh Generation’s position.
But after hearing from tens of thousands of PETA supporters via e-mail and phone and after 85,000 people signed our online petition, Seventh Generation changed its tune. Less than 3 months after PETA informed our members about Seventh Generation’s stance on this issue, the company signed on to PCRM’s letter to Congress acknowledging that animal tests are “slow, unreliable, and expensive” and that non-animal methods and strategies must be used first and foremost, and it has committed to advocating for this principle in all of its lobbying efforts. This is great progress, and PETA will continue to keep a close eye on this issue to ensure that Seventh Generation stays on the right track for animals in its advocacy efforts.
What You Can Do
We’ll continue to do everything we can to push Congress to bring toxicity testing into the 21st century, and you can help by urging your congressional representatives to ban cruel cosmetics tests on animals in the U.S.!
