Adventures in M - Day 6 - Animal Testing Continued

I admit it: I'm a nerd. Worse still, I'm a science nerd. I have one degree in Chemical Engineering and another in Biology plus I've been a Personal Trainer for over 8 years.

And I want to know everything. If there is an ingredient I don't know about I want to find out what the heck it is.

And being Green, I want to know if the company I am falling in love with has any issues with animal testing or sourcing of ingredients.

And being a neurotic adult child of an alcoholic (ACOA) I want to know if there are any skeletons in the closet that would allow me to run away quickly. Yes, I do this in relationships as well.

I thought I would ask at the Launch if M products were tested on animals but once we got there, it didn't seem like the right place - all the Senior Directors and above were super-busy. Once we got home, I did some online research to find out if it was stated anywhere.

Here is what I found. M does not have a policy of NO Animal Testing. They have said that they would not conduct animal testing on their personal care and home cleaning products and, as far as I can discover, they have not. They are on the PETA Does Test on Animals List though and I found that there have been mixed reports as to whether they animal test or not. Here are the two exceptions I found to their commitment to not test on animals, these seem to be the reason they are on PETA's list, according to PETA's Ask Carla column:

1. As part of their defense in a lawsuit launched against them by a National Brand, they did laboratory tests to show that drinking the competitor's cleaning products was lethal. As a result, 14 lab rats died nasty deaths from the lethal dosage.

2. When developing their heart health antioxidant product they apparently did lab testing using dogs. According to Carla's column, this testing was not federally mandated, however, if they were hoping to be able to make health claims on the bottle then they may have had to do the testing.

And, a third incident that may or may not be relevant, and is certainly disputed:

3. Finally, M developed and sells Professional Pet Shampoo. Apparently, when they were being interviewed by an 'animal rights organization', Melaleuca asked if testing the shampoo on their own dogs before putting it out to their customers counted as animal testing - they were told that yes it did.

All in all, I'm satisfied that the company does not test its products on animals in the vast majority of cases and that any testing it does do is probably required by law.

Here is a letter from CEO Frank VanderSloot that lays out his company's position that I found while digging around.