Tempest In A Flea Pot
This story is, to say the least, bizarre. A Belgian-based company that is the world's biggest supplier of "eco-friendly" cleaning products has lost the "prized" Vegan Society endorsement mark. Why, you ask? Well because the company tests the effects of its products on the marine ecosystem using a tiny little thing called a water flea. These water fleas run to the huge size of 0.2mm or around .008 inch. The company maintains it is the only way to test the effects. The Vegans call it animal testing.
The world's biggest supplier of environmentally friendly cleaning products is embroiled in a bizarre row over 'animal-testing' - on tiny water fleas.
Products by Ecover, which the company says are not tested on animals, carry the prized Vegan Society mark.
They fill shelves of British supermarkets and help the Belgian-based firm achieve a £30million annual turnover.
But the Vegan Society is to refuse permission for its trademark to be used when the endorsement comes up for renewal later this month.
The move follows a tip-off that Ecover uses the water fleas - between 0.2mm and 5mm long - to test the effects of detergents on aquatic life.
According to Ecover, the microscopic crustacean - scientific name Daphnia - found in rivers, streams, lakes and ponds, isn't actually an animal.
Certainly it's not covered by EU animal-testing rules which are limited to vertebrates past a specified embryonic stage.
But the Vegan Society members consider water fleas - named for their jumping style of swimming - as "part of the animal kingdom".
We're curious about how vegans treat infections since bacteria are also part of the animal kingdom. (If they hold to that set of beliefs, they are on the same road the Shakers took.) The Vegan Society also demands that Ecover not use blood drawn from farmed rabbits for other testing. Instead, they say, the company should use human blood. (We're not making that up.)
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are not sure what, precisely, is "prized" about the Vegan Society mark. We'd call it a booby prize, but hey, that's just us. We remind readers not to try a vegan diet however. They're whiny, hard to catch and stringy.
Animals, World news | Gaius Saturday, 11 August , 2007
By feeblemind, Saturday, 11 August , 2007 @ 10:32 pm
Those whiny, hard to catch and stringy Vegans might be wormy too. That would help make them stringy. Wonder what one of them would do if you told them they were infected with parasitic worms and the treatment would kill the worms?
By Gaius, Saturday, 11 August , 2007 @ 10:36 pm
Seriously creepy thought, isn’t it?
By Sam L., Sunday, 12 August , 2007 @ 8:20 am
Ecover should have immediately requested the Vegan Society members to sign up for donating their blood for testing purposes.
By Susan, Monday, 13 August , 2007 @ 12:38 pm
There were other reasons besides the testing on fleas - useage of the five year rolling rule, for instance.
Helps if you do a bit of research rather than just repeating what you read in a tabloid!