The 2013 Lush Prize For Non-Animal Testing

The 2013 Lush Prize For Non-Animal Testing

The winners of the 2013 Lush Prize have been awarded a share in the prize money of £250,000 for their pioneering work on non-animal chemical safety testing.

One of the winners includes local New Zealand animal rights group, SAFE, who have been awarded £25,000 for publicising the use of animal-testing in national drugs regulation and helping consumers to buy cruelty-free products. Please see below an image of Mandy Carter, SAFE Campaign Manager, receiving the Lush Prize award.

The dozen winners from Europe, the USA and New Zealand are being rewarded for their outstanding contributions in the field of cruelty-free scientific research, public awareness raising and lobbying.  They include researchers in university departments from Cardiff to Innsbruck and campaigners from the USA and Sweden.

Now in its second year, the annual Lush Prize has seen a more than 40% increase in nominations from science projects. Andrew Tyler Director of Animal Aid, one of the UK's biggest animal rights groups, and Lush Prize judge, said:

'This year's winners illustrate that non-animal methods of toxicity testing have moved from an aspirational phase to one of practical implementation and application."
 
Lush Co-founder and Managing Director Mark Constantine OBE said:

'Sadly animal testing for the cosmetics industry is still widespread.  In fact, as emerging markets grow, it will increase.  The Lush Prize is worth a quarter of a million pounds and we hope to fund the Eureka moment - when a breakthrough is made to end animal testing of cosmetics forever."

Rob Harrison from Ethical Consumer magazine and a Director of the Lush Prize said:

'The implementation of the European Cosmetics Directive in March has made 2013 a year to remember for campaigners against animal testing.  Unreliable Victorian technologies testing on non-human species are increasingly being replaced by human cell-based tests of the kind rewarded in this year's prize."

www.lushprize.org

www.lush.co.uk

www.ethicalconsumer.org