EPA Eliminates Animal Testing in Reviewing New Surfactants

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advanced safety reviews of new chemicals and pesticides while further eliminating the agency’s reliance on animal testing. The new methods will help EPA assess the potential inhalation and oral risks of certain chemicals and pesticides faster and with greater human relevance, advancing the agency’s commitments to transparency, regulatory certainty, and the protection of human health and the environment.

The EPA introduced two integrated solutions to eliminate animal testing and modernize toxicity reviews:

• Modernizing Surfactant Assessment: Surfactants are chemicals used widely in soaps, detergents, and cleaning products. EPA has updated its scientific framework to better predict how these specific formulas may irritate the lungs using 3D human airway tissue, providing science that is faster, more human relevant, and less dependent on animal testing—without compromising safety. This allows reviewers to safely estimate risks using existing digital models rather than ordering new animal studies.
• Adopting GHS Mixture Standards: EPA will use an international, scientifically backed formula, the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) mixtures equation, to predict oral toxicity for some pesticides. This decision follows a comprehensive analysis—conducted with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences—that evaluated nearly 700 pesticide formulations, which showed the mixtures equation can reliably identify products that are minimally toxic by the oral route. By using globally recognized, data-driven calculation formulas, the agency can accurately assess risks based on a mixture’s known ingredients, eliminating the need to test the final blended product on animals.

A key pillar of EPA’s strategy involves pursuing alternatives to animal testing called New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), which are advanced chemical testing technologies, such as computer modeling, cell-based studies, and data-sharing platforms, that estimate chemical toxicity without using live animals. NAMs are functionally equivalent “alternatives” to mammal testing. NAMs allow EPA to look directly at chemical impacts on human cells and biological pathways, leading to more accurate predictions of potential health risks in significantly less time than it takes to complete a single animal study, the agency said.

By utilizing these modern tools, EPA can review innovative chemistries more expeditiously, reducing costly, slow, and unnecessary animal testing while raising the scientific bar and better protecting human health and the environment.