Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being urged to halt a set of Food and Drug Administration rules requiring that some cosmetics and sunscreens be tested on animals, considered an outdated and harmful practice by animal advocates.
Initially decried by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) at the end of the Biden administration and now PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, the tests were called for in legislation aimed at investigating any harm caused by chemicals in sunscreens absorbed in the skin.
The plan before the FDA is to conduct animal testing, which has fallen out of favor in recent years thanks to campaigns pushed by PETA and others to use scientifically proven alternative methods.
Today, PETA said it would remove sunscreen from its products considered animal-friendly. Those are on its Beauty Without Bunnies list, a guide for consumers seeking out products not tested on rabbits, mice or other animals.
Kennedy, who oversees the FDA as Secretary of Health and Human Services, has ruled out animal testing for cosmetics on at least one campaign questionnaire.
Newkirk said that keeping sunscreen testing animal-free would also be a cost saver, an issue the Trump administration is focused on with its Department of Government Efficiency project headed by entrepreneur Elon Musk.
“RFK Jr. and the prospective FDA commissioner have both spoken and written extensively about the wastefulness of the FDA’s bureaucracy. The sunscreen testing requirement is exactly the kind of burdensome regulatory bureaucracy that both of those people need, and want, to eliminate,” said Newkirk.
“Given Kennedy’s willingness to challenge entrenched orthodoxies in science, we are hopeful that, as head of HHS, he will prioritize advancing modern, human-relevant research methodologies over outdated and ineffective animal testing. If RFK Jr. gets his hatchet out, he would do us all a favor in cutting this test plan,” she added.
PETA United Kingdom Science Advisor Jeffrey Brown, also called for killing the testing plan that moved forward under the Biden administration.
“PETA calls on the incoming commissioner to change the course set by the previous administration,” he said.
Brown also told Secrets, “It would be a surprise if RFK Jr. or the incoming FDA commissioner doesn’t catch hell from the sunscreen companies in the U.S., which are going to have to spend tens of millions on this testing requirement that is not sought anywhere else in the world.”
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Trump has selected surgeon and bestselling author Dr. Martin “Marty” Makary to head the FDA.
The accomplished Johns Hopkins surgeon is expected to have his confirmation hearings in early March, and PETA hopes to win his commitment to stop animal testing plans.