What You Can Do

Contact Your Congressional Representatives

Please contact your U.S. representative and senators and explain to them that there is no reason for federal agencies’ continuing to require the use of animal-test methods for skin absorption, skin irritation, skin corrosion, phototoxicity, and pyrogenicity tests. Other member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have replaced these tests with non-animal methods. Ask your representative and senators to urge the following agencies to do the same—please note that different agencies have different testing requirements, as indicated in parentheses:

Environmental Protection Agency (skin corrosion, skin absorption, and skin irritation)
Food and Drug Administration (skin absorption, skin irritation, phototoxicity, and pyrogenicity)
Department of Transportation (skin corrosion)
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (skin absorption)
Consumer Product Safety Commission (skin irritation)
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (skin absorption)

To learn who your U.S. representative and senators are, click here.

Participate in PETA’s Shareholder Resolution Campaign

If you hold stock in a company that manufactures pharmaceuticals or chemicals of any type, you read your proxy statements carefully to determine whether there are any resolutions addressing animal protection and welfare and vote accordingly. If you are not familiar with proxy statements because your broker handles those matters for you, you can simply instruct your broker to vote your shares in favor of animals.

We need shareholders (you, a family member, friend, colleague, or anyone who is willing to help animals) who have owned at least $2,000 worth of stock in the any of the following companies:

Abbott
Altria
Amgen
Barr Labs
Bristol-Myers
Charles River Laboratories
Chevron
Chiron
Crompton Corp. (Chemtura)
Dupont
Eli Lilly
General Electric
MedImmune
Merck
Pfizer
Rohm and Haas
3M
United Agri Products
Wyeth

The shares need to have been held continuously for a year or more. While we often promote the benefits of donating stock, in this case, we need the shareholder to keep the stock and work with us to file a resolution. Please contact PETA if you hold stock in any of these companies and satisfy the eligibility criteria above.