In light of today’s global marketplace, a meaningful reduction in animal testing can only occur if different countries are prepared to recognise and accept the results of validated alternative methods. Otherwise, companies will be forced to perform different tests to satisfy different national requirements—which wastes not only time and money, but can actually increase the amount of animal testing that is done. 

Through the efforts of the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) and similar bodies in some member states, the EU has established itself as the world leader in the development and acceptance of non-animal/alternative test methods. More than two-dozen such methods have already been endorsed as scientifically valid, and many of these have also been adopted into EU testing regulations. Yet to date only a small handful of these methods have been formally endorsed by the US validation authority, ICCVAM (Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods) and accepted by relevant US federal agencies. Without a clear endorsement by ICCVAM, American regulators have been disinclined to accept alternative methods pioneered in the EU.

As a consequence, companies on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly being forced to double-test their products in order to market them internationally (i.e., EU law prohibits animal use when an alternative approach is reasonably or practicably available, while US regulators remain skeptical of alternative methods, preferring to stick to familiar animal tests).

Humane Society International (HSI Europe) and the US-based Humane Society Legislative Fund are providing political and scientific support for bilateral discussions aimed at improving transatlantic regulatory co-operation in a number of areas. In particular, we are lobbying the US and EU to sign a formal Mutual Recognition Agreement concerning alternative test methods in order to expedite international acceptance and use of these life-saving technologies and prevent duplicate testing. A first step towards this has been taken with the creation of the International Cooperation on Alternative Test Methods (ICATM) between validation authorities in the EU, US, Japan and Canada.