My internet is going to be spotty for the next week or so — so I probably won’t be posting much. If you’re a newbie trying to leave a comment, I’ll get to you as soon as I get back!

Finally! Another celebrity endorsing not testing on animals! (This makes two! Along with James Cromwell!) Kanye West is doing some sort of advertising for Absolut Vodka in which the logo “not tested on animals” is prominently displayed. I saw news of this at Ecorazzi and was just delighted. I think this is especially nice because I am totally on-board any the pro-Absolut-advertising-campaign — I really liked their back-of-magazines classic advertising gimmicks (um, hi blogger who wrote a great post on why you like Absolut ads! I’m with you.) — no other alcoholic company has come close in making such iconic ads.

I’ve gotten a little behind on posting about Altweb’s — the Johns Hopkins University global clearinghouse for information on alternatives to animal testing — endeavors. What has the alternatives community been up to since February? Luckily I’ve come up with a list of articles.

None of these articles are that . . . fascinating . . . in and of themselves. Sorry! (I wouldn’t recommend clicking on any of these links unless you’re really interested in the subject — your eyes may glaze over.)

But I think it’s just fascinating how these articles illustrate all the day-to-day activity about alternatives to animal testing. For example, there’s a bill that would end invasive testing on chimpanzees (yay!), the proceedings of the 6th World Congress on Alternatives to Animal Use (doesn’t that sound lovely?), and some information about how the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validating of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) is looking into in vitro eye tests.

It’s just AMAZING to me that there’s all this stuff out there — it really highlights how much work is going on in finding alternatives to using animals in toxicological experiments. If you know anyone interested in toxicology and animal welfare, this definitely would be the place to direct their attention!

Though overall I’m really surprised so few people know about Altweb in particular and alternative methods in general. Whenever the subject comes up in my day-to-day life and I inform people that there are animal testing alternatives that are scientific and effective, they look at me with shock in their eyes. They have absolutely no idea there’s all this interesting stuff going on in alternative methods. But there is! Check it out:

NEW: Altweb Special Section on Refinement

NEW: 2008 Animal Welfare Enhancement Awards: Call for Proposals

Contact Dermatitis 2008: Blending Science with Best Practice (Montreal, August 28-30) (05/30/2008)

Federal Bill Would End Invasive Testing on Chimpanzees (05/27/2008)

Peer Review Panel Report on Murine Local Lymph Node Assay (LLNA) Now Available (05/21/2008)

Netherlands Centre Alternatives to Animal Use (NCA) May Newsletter (05/14/2008)

Proceedings of the 6th World Congress on Alternatives & Animal Use in the Life Sciences now available on Altweb (05/06/2008)

Persons and Institutions Active in the Field of Alternatives (DB-ALM, ECVAM) Now Accessible to the Public (05/06/2008)

DNT2: Developmental Neurotoxicity Conference Brochure Available for Download (PDF) (04/28/2008)

AWIC Offers Updated Bibliography of Care and Welfare of Dogs (04/28/2008)

NC3Rs Events 2008 Newsletter (04/17/2008)

Go3R.org, a New Knowledge-based Semantic Search Engine (04/09/2008)

ICCVAM to Assess Non-Animal Methods and Approach for Evaluating Eye Irritation Potential for Antimicrobial Cleaning Products (04/08/2008)

Altweb Calendar Updates (04/01/2008)

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Alternatives Research & Development Foundation 2008 Alternatives Research Grant Program (03/11/2008)

Alba Botanica Papaya Mango Body Cream is from Alba’s “Alba Hawaiian” line in the yellow, orange, and green print bottles. It has the words “Alba Organics” on the side — I suppose this must be a new development at the Alba Botanica/Avalon Organics/Unpetroleum company. Maybe Alba Botanica is now Alba Organics?

Anyway, the cream is hypoallergenic, made from 75% certified organic ingredients, and filled with “tropical fruit enzymes and beta-carotene blended in a rich, luxurious body cream to soften, soothe, and smooth rough, dry, flaky skin.” To use it, you’re supposed to apply liberally to entire body, especially elbows, knees, and heels.

(It’s 100%-cruelty-free, vegetarian, and 75% organic. But it is not vegan.)

My take on it: Well, I like the jar — it’s a medium-sized plastic tub that is easy to carry around and doesn’t take up much space on any countertop. I like the fragrance — it’s very fruity and mango-ey, though it is a little chemical smelling, which I’m not so keen on. It has a wonderful texture — creamy and thick but melts into my skin pretty quickly for a thick cream, not grainy at all, very smooth, and not heavy or greasy. I do kind of wish it were a little thicker — I was looking for something primarily to moisturize my feet — I’ve been wearing flip-flops all summer long and my feet are really in need of serious moisture. I think this is a great rich cream for legs, arms, and hands, but really dry feet that have been exposed to really dry dusty conditions every day of the week? Not so much. I think I may have to find something else for that. (The other problem I have is that I usually put this on before I go to bed, and get it all over my hands, and then when I wake up and rub my eyes in the morning I get papaya-fragranced chemicals in my eyes and that makes my eyes tear. I think I’ll have to find an unscented foot cream somewhere . . . )

Alba Hawaiian Papaya Mango Body Cream (6.5oz) is available for $11.95 from the Alba Botanica online store, as well as Whole Foods and Longs.

Ingredients: Purified water, certified organic aloe barbadensis leaf juice, caprylic/capric triglyceride, carthamus tinctorius (safflower) seed oil, stearic acid, vegetable glycerin, glyceryl stearate, stearyl alcohol, butyrospermum parkii (shea butter), polysorbate 60, dimethicone, extracts of carica papaya fruit, mangifera indica (mango) fruit, cucumis sativus (cucumber) fruit, arnica montana flower and anacyclus pyrethrum root, aleurites moluccana (kukui) seed oil, macadamia ternifolia seed oil, rosa moschata seed oil, beta carotene, phenoxyethanol, ethylhexylglycerin, potassium sorbate, tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E), carbomer, caramel and fragrance.

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Have you always wanted to try Method products? Now’s your chance! Method is having a 20% off sale on their new “midsummer salad” kit — it has an all purpose spray, dish soap, hand wash, and a soy candle — all for $16 if you order the kit online. (I think it’s $16 after the 20% off — i.e., without the 20% off it would be $20.) If you’ve been thinking of trying Method products, this would be a very nice starter package. I don’t think I’ll be ordering it myself, because sadly, I own all of these products except for the soy candle, and I have a bunch of candles I ought to use up before I go buying any new ones. Sigh . . .

(Method products are of course not tested on animals, but they are also vegan. They are not organic.)

mid-summer salad kit

a healthy dose of greens in fresh flavors

detox your home for the dog days of summer with our new kit. we hand-picked a few of our best-selling cleaners in some of our favorite scents and we’re offering them up at 20% off. all purpose spray, dish soap, hand wash and a soy candle, all for just 16 bucks. sweet. unfortunately, just like the long days of summer, we won’t have it forever. (psst… sweeten your deal even more with 50% off shipping when you purchase $50 or more.)

The title of this chart is actually “Not my dog.” This makes me very sad. I actually really like the blog this came from a lot — it’s called Indexed and if you don’t have it in your feed-reader you really should — it has lots of clever little charts that illustrate jokes. I mean, this one is hilarious. As is this one. And this one.

Anyway, and not to pick on Ms. Hagy too much — she has a wonderful blog and is probably a very nice person — I just find it disturbing that she feels that animal testing is a joke, that the cruelty she’s heard about is exaggerated, and that most animal testing involves taking many family pets, offering they different types of kibble, and seeing which ones they like the most. And then taking the pets for a run on the beach, and watching their glossy coats gleam in the sun before taking them home to their gigantic houses in the suburbs with 2.5 children and two parents who dote upon the. In reality, most pet food is never tested on animals at the kibble stage. If you think about it — most dog food is made up of things people and dogs have been eating for thousands of years. Exactly what animal testing would need to be done to prove this stuff is safe? Should we test pork to see if it’s okay to feed dogs? Corn meal, perhaps? Chicken? Rice? Wheat? Um, why? Seriously, we’ve spent thousands of years eating pork. There is no animal test that could provide us with better statistics than the past thousands of years of billions of people eating pork (and occasionally dying from eating pork — trichinosis is very, very bad). There is no animal testing required for dog food products — as long as they conform to the American Association of Feed Control Officials requirements, anyone can market a dog food. (The AAFCO’s stuff was originally horrifically tested on dogs and cats, if you’re still worried your pet food might kill your pet — I vaguely recall reading about it in Small Animal Clinical Nutrition — they would take different protein sources, feed them in the same amounts calorically to different lonely kennel-bound dogs, and see how much weight each dog gained. The protein sources that caused the dogs to gain the most weight were determined to be “high-quality” proteins, and the proteins that caused the dogs to not gain much weight were called “low-quality” proteins. And there was something about how bioavailable the proteins were as well. Then the dogs would probably be killed and autopsied to see how the proteins affected their internal organs. (It’s been a while since I’ve read this — if you have more detailed information on this, please drop me a line.) Anyway, I can only hypothesize the AAFCO kept tons of dogs locked in lonely kennels before euthanizing and autopsying them and checking out whether dogs survive on diets with low, medium, or high levels of all kinds of nutrients — so yes, dog food has a horrific past involving animal testing, in case you were wondering.)

The real face of animal testing on pet foods can be found at Iamscruelty.com. Iams needlessly tests these food products which we’ve been eating for thousands of years on numerous dogs and cats. Iamscruelty.com describes kennels of animals kept to test Iams pet foods (Science Diet) under a nine-month investigation revealed dogs and cats were “fed a steady diet of loneliness, suffering, and neglect in their laboratory cages.” I can’t believe Ms. Hagy would seriously support this — she wants to sacrifice other dogs to loneliness, suffering, and neglect just so her dog can eat food made from ingredients we’ve all been eating for thousands of years and have no need to be tested on animals? With nutrient compositions that have been tested on animals already by the AAFCO in this century? I assume Ms. Hagy is not a sadist, and is therefor just misinformed about the necessity of animal testing, but still, it makes me sad.