N.Y. Public Health Law § 505: Animal irritancy tests prohibited

§ 505. Animal irritancy tests prohibited. 1. No manufacturer or

contract testing facilities shall conduct traditional animal test

methods within this state for which an appropriate alternative test

method has been scientifically validated and recommended by the

Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee for the Validation of Alternative

Methods (ICCVAM) and adopted by the regulation by the relevant federal

agency or agencies or program within an agency responsible for

regulating the specific product or activity for which the test is being

conducted.

2. Nothing in this section shall prohibit the conduct of any

alternative nonanimal test method for the testing of any product,

product formulation, chemical, or ingredient that is not recommended by

ICCVAM.

3. Nothing in this section shall prohibit the conduct of animal tests

to comply with the requirements of state agencies. Nothing in this

section shall prohibit the conduct of animal tests to comply with the

requirements of federal agencies whenever the federal agency staff

concludes that the alternative nonanimal test does not assure the health

or safety of consumers.

4. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the exclusive remedy

for enforcing this section shall be a civil action for injunctive relief

brought by the attorney general. If the court determines that the

attorney general is the prevailing party in the enforcement action, such

prevailing party may also recover costs, attorneys fees and a civil

penalty not to exceed one thousand dollars in that action.

5. This section shall not apply to any animal test conducted for the

purpose of medical research.

6. For the purposes of this section, the following terms shall have

the following meanings:

(a) "Animal" means a vertebrate nonhuman animal.

(b) "Contract testing facility" means any individual, partnership,

corporation, association, or other legal relationship that tests

chemicals, ingredients, product formulations, or products in this state.

(c) "ICCVAM" means the Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee for the

Validation of Alternative Methods, a federal committee comprised of

representatives from fourteen federal regulatory or research agencies,

including the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection

Agency, and Consumer Products Safety Commission, that reviews the

validity of alternative test methods. The committee is the federal

mechanism for recommending appropriate, valid test methods to relevant

federal agencies.

(d) "Manufacturer" means any individual, partnership, corporation,

association, or other legal relationship that produces chemicals,

ingredients, product formulations, or products in this state.

(e) "Medical research" means research related to the causes,

diagnosis, treatment, control or prevention of physical or mental

diseases and impairments of humans and animals, or related to the

development of biomedical products, devices or drugs as defined in

Section 321(g)(1) of Title 21 of the United States Code. Medical

research does not include the testing of an ingredient that was formerly

used in a drug, tested for the drug use with traditional animal methods

to characterize the ingredient and to substantiate its safety for human

use, and is now proposed for use in a product other than a biomedical

product, medical device or drug.

(f) "Person" means any individual, partnership, corporation,

association or other legal entity.

(g) "Traditional animal test method" means a process or procedure

using animals to obtain information on the characteristics of a chemical

or agent. Toxicological test methods generate information regarding the

ability of a chemical or agent to product a specific biological effect

under specified conditions.

(h) "Validated alternative test method" means a test method that does

not use animals, or in some cases reduces or refines the current use of

animals for which the reliability and relevance for a specific purpose

has been established in validation studies as specified in the ICCVAM

report provided to the relevant federal agencies.