Animal Aid

Leading ethical cosmetics retailer, Lush, has this week launched the first ever Lush Prize to help bring an end to animal testing. The Prize will reward groups or individuals working in the field of cruelty-free scientific research, awareness-raising and lobbying. Animal Aid’s Director, Andrew Tyler, has been chosen to sit on the judging panel.

The Lush Prize has a fund of £250,000 – the biggest prize in the alternative testing sector – and was launched at a media breakfast briefing at The Ivy in London on Tuesday (June 19). If there is a major breakthrough in the field, the entire prize money may be awarded to one team or individual, but generally it will split into five separate prizes for different categories:

• Science Prize: the development of replacement non-animal tests
• Training Prize: training researchers in non-animal methods
• Lobbying Prize: policy interventions to promote the use of replacements
• Public Awareness Prize: raising awareness of ongoing testing
• Young Researcher Awards: to five post-graduates specialising in replacements research

Joining Andrew Tyler on the judging panel are Troy Seidle, Director of Research and Toxicology at Humane Society International, and Caroline Lucas MP. More judges will be announced in the run up to the award ceremony, which will be held in November.

Animal Aid Director, Andrew Tyler, declared at the launch:

‘I’m much encouraged by this initiative and delighted, on behalf of Animal Aid, to be invited to join the judging team. Lush is a business conspicuous, like few others, for its engagement in ethical issues. It practises the kind of sane but rare marketplace advocacy that we need lots more of.

Why are animals used in testing? Out of habit. The practice has become encrusted with an elaborate bureaucratic infrastructure. Businesses and careers depend on it. And yet it fails to deliver data that can be reliably applied to people. So the public, as well as the immediate animal victims, suffer. But significant change is in the air. This handsome Lush prize, I feel confident, will help speed us on our way.’

For more information about the Lush Prize, visit http://www.lushprize.org/