Melaleuca and Animal Cruelty

Frank L. VanderSloot, president and CEO of Melaleuca, writes:

Please get your information correct befor you print!

This is Melaleuca's policy on animal cruelty - From the July 1997 Melaleuca Country: Our Position: Firm But Not Extreme

In our quest to enhance lives by providing superior products, we are sometimes asked about our position on cruelty to animals - especially in regards to testing products on animals. Our position is quite clear: We are absolutely against cruelty to animals. There is no excuse for it, and those who participate in any type of animal cruelty should be prosecuted and held accountable under the law.

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Some things get carried much too far. I remember when we were contemplating developing a pet shampoo; an animal rights group that wanted to know if we tested our products on animals contacted us. They were updating a list of companies that promised never to test on animals, and they planned to make that list public. I expressed our desire to be included on that list, but that it would have to specify that we would not test on household or personal care products, since we planned soon to introduce a pet shampoo, and we obviously would need to bathe our own dogs before we went to market to determine whether we had a superior product. We specifically wanted to determine if we could get the dogs' coat to shine like we desired. I feared that would be deemed animal testing. I was informed that it indeed would fall under "animal testing," and we were not allowed on the list. (We finally did make it on the list several years after we came out with the ProCare Pet Shampoo. I have never figured out how they expected us to develop a dog shampoo if we were not allowed to wash a dog with it first!)

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I hope this answers the questions about where Melaleuca stands on this issue. While we do not expect everyone to agree with us, we felt it appropriate to let you know exactly where we stand.

Sincerely,

Frank L. VanderSloot

The Green Guide responds:

Dear Mr. VanderSloot,

Thank you for your letter regarding our response to a reader's question about Melaleuca products.

In it, we alerted readers to the fact that Melaleuca appears on the list compiled by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal (PETA) of companies that test products on animals. In your response, you suggest that we should have investigated the facts of the matter further, rather than simply passing along PETA's allegation. So we did, and below are the results of our investigation.

PETA agrees with Melaleuca's stance that developers of dog shampoos should be able to try out those products on dogs. However, PETA contends that Melaleuca elected to contract out testing to the kind of facility that engages in the invasive testing of laboratory dogs. A more humane method, per PETA, is to offer samples of the shampoo to dog owners, thereby avoiding a financial relationship with a test facility. Repeated attempts were made by The Green Guide to solicit a comment from a Melaleuca company representative on this issue. The representative failed to respond.

Melaleuca also commissioned a laboratory to test the safety of products manufactured by a competitor, Natural World. According to a document from Melaleuca, Natural World made claims that its cleaning products were "safe for children." When the laboratory rats "died a horrible death" (per your same document), Natural World ceased its safety claims but also turned over the information to PETA. At this point, PETA told Melaleuca that lethal dose testing of rats was wrong, but that Melaleuca could stay on its Companies That Don't Test on Animals list.

Finally, as mentioned in Melaleuca's documentation, Melaleuca also commissioned a laboratory to test a cardiovascular-health product, Provex CV. According to PETA, invasive tests were conducted on dogs and at the end the animals were euthanized. Given the nature of these tests, PETA included Melaleuca on its list of "Consumer Companies That Test on Animals." Again, attempts to solicit a comment on this issue from a Melaleuca company representative were not successful.

Overall, PETA contends that Melaleuca's inclusion on the "Consumer Companies That Test on Animals" list stems not from bathing dogs with the shampoo, as suggested in Mr. VanderSloot's letter to The Green Guide, but from lethal dose testing of the competitors' products on rats and the invasive testing of the heart-health product on dogs. As the document provided by the Melaleuca office states "In our quest to save life, we refuse to tell PETA that we will never again test our cardiovascular product on animals" (for PETA's lists and their criteria, please go to peta.org/mall/cc.html).

At The Green Guide, we take pride in our thorough research, thoughtful writing, and careful fact-checking. It is good of course to double check ourselves, and for this we appreciate letters such as yours.