Incoming FDA Commissioner Must Reverse Old Administration’s Move to Require Antiquated Animal Testing Requirement for Sunscreens

For Immediate Release:
February 27, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Today, PETA will remove all sunscreens from our Beauty Without Bunnies list—the program that identifies cruelty-free cosmetic and personal care brands—in response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) public comments that the agency now requires animal testing for so-called chemical sunscreen active ingredients. The action comes ahead of Dr. Marty Makary’s confirmation hearing as the new FDA head and PETA’s appeal to him to reverse this requirement.

Sunscreens have been used safely for decades, but the FDA’s requirement that companies use animals in new tests is levied despite years of human data demonstrating no safety issues as well as their effectiveness in preventing skin cancer. Companies that use only mineral sunscreen active ingredients—which are not subject to FDA’s push for animal testing—will remain in the Beauty Without Bunnies program.

The FDA’s new animal testing requirement flies in the face of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, passed into law in 2022, which set an expectation that the agency would seek the expertise needed to accept non-animal replacements for tests on animals.

The FDA Modernization Act 3.0, currently before Congress, recognizes the FDA is failing to meet the expectations of this law and seeks to strengthen it. Senator Dr. Rand Paul, a co-sponsor of the Act, commented that “Americans deserve a regulatory system that embraces innovation, not one stuck in the past.”

Even the FDA seems ambivalent about the need for these new tests on animals. “Please protect yourself from the sun!” is the message the FDA shares with the public on its official website. “Consumers should continue to use sun protection measures, including using broad spectrum sunscreen of SPF 15 or higher, as we gather more safety data on sunscreen ingredients.”

“Requiring tests on animals that, by the FDA’s own admission, do not translate to human health and safety takes science back to the dark ages,” says PETA UK Science Advisor Jeffrey Brown. “PETA calls on the incoming Commissioner to change the course set by the previous administration.”

Some of the tests required include developmental and reproductive toxicity tests that expose thousands of animals to a chemical over multiple generations. Also carcinogenicity tests, which expose hundreds of animals to a chemical for their entire lives. The results of these tests often don’t translate to humans and FDA experts themselves have noted major scientific drawbacks inherent in them. The animals are killed and dissected when the tests are complete.

PETA and its supporters are calling on the FDA to rely on superior, human-relevant approaches instead of using archaic methods to assess these life-saving sunscreen products.