Former Baywatch star and Bigg Boss star Pamela Anderson has written to the Indian Health Ministry calling for a ban on animal testing.
Anderson was delighted to learn that after banning the testing of cosmetics and their ingredients on animals, India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is now considering amending The Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, to include a ban on the import and sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals anywhere in the world.
Anderson then wrote to Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan to urge him to extend the animal-testing ban.
In her letter, Anderson writes, "Please resist special interests and 'dinosaur' companies who still test in crude and cruel ways and do the right, kind thing. Please pass the proposed ban on the import and sale of cosmetics if they or their ingredients have been tested on animals without delay".
If introduced into The Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, the new rule could state, "135-B. Import of cosmetics tested on animals prohibited.—No cosmetic tested on animals shall be imported".
A decision to ban the import and sale of cosmetics if they or their ingredients have been tested on animals would bring India in line with Israel and the European Union, which have already passed similar bans.
"The European Union and Israel have already banned the marketing and sale of cosmetics if they or their ingredients were tested on animals, and more than 1,400 companies around the world have also banned all animal tests in favour of modern, non-animal and human-relevant test methods", writes Anderson.
"They no longer drip substances into rabbits' eyes, smear them onto guinea pigs' abraded skin, spray them into dogs' and monkeys' faces, and force them down animals' throats, the thought of which makes me sick."
After learning about the issue from PETA India, many other stars – including Raveena Tandon-Thadani, Jacqueline Fernandez, Dia Mirza, R Madhavan, Rahul Khanna, Sunny Leone, Pooja Bhatt, Lara Dutta, Trisha Krishnan, Dino Morea and Esha Deol-Takhtani – petitioned India's Ministry of Health & Family Welfare in support of a sale ban on cosmetics and household products tested on animals.
This is not the first time that Anderson has spoken up for animals.
Among dozens of international actions over the years, she recently supported PETA India's successful campaign to free the chained temple elephant Sunder, who now lives in a spacious elephant park.
While she was in India filming Bigg Boss, Anderson adopted a desi dog she named Pyari.
The long-time vegan also wrote to then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2010 and asked him to help the cows who are abused and slaughtered in the gruesome leather trade.