Brazil moves forward — but only so far

There’s good news from Brazil: the Chamber of Deputies has just approved a bill banning cosmetic testing on live vertebrates. A historic move that promises to spare countless rabbits, guinea pigs, and mice from having corrosive chemicals rubbed into their eyes and skin, or forced down their throats. If signed by the president, Brazil will join a growing list of countries rejecting the archaic notion that animals exist to be tested on for our vanity.

This is not just a legislative victory; it’s a moral stance. Groups like Te Protejo and Humane World for Animals have worked relentlessly to push this bill forward, even creating a viral stop-motion film, Save Ralph, that has reached millions. Once the law is enacted, manufacturers will be barred from using animal data to sell cosmetics and will be prohibited from slapping misleading “cruelty-free” labels on products that hide suffering behind marketing gloss.

It’s the kind of progress that deserves celebration. But before the confetti settles, we have to look beyond the test tubes and into the slaughterhouses — and ask why Brazil’s ethical horizon stops at lipstick.

Because while animals used for cosmetic experiments may finally see a reprieve, animals in Brazil’s meat industry remain invisible — exploited, commodified, and ground into profit margins.

JBS started as a family butcher in 1953. Decades later, bloated with over $6 US billion in public funding from Brazil’s “national champions” policy, it morphed into a corporate colossus. Supported by government loans, bank bailouts, and a web of political favours, JBS now rakes in more revenue each year than 20 of Brazil’s 27 federal states combined.

But while five top JBS executives pocket around $424,000 per month — an obscene figure in a country struggling with hunger — the company’s 113,000 workers scrape by on a mere $393 a month, a third of what’s considered a living wage in Brazil. This wealth gap is not a side effect. It’s the business model.

JBS has played the PR game well, claiming to “feed the world with the best.” Yet, in 11 of 12 cities where JBS dominates, poverty and hunger have actually increased. Government social assistance demand has skyrocketed by 50% in these areas, directly contradicting the corporate fairy tale of shared prosperity.

Even as JBS flaunts its sustainability badges and Sustainable Development Goal endorsements, the reality is that billions meant to uplift the public have only inflated the salaries of top brass and lined the pockets of shareholders. The Brazilian Development Bank, meant to serve the nation, stands complicit, voting against executive pay hikes — but watching them sail through anyway.

At the same time, non-human animals continue to be treated as unfeeling units of production. Their commodification is hidden behind cheap slogans and glossy adverts, while their bodies become mere “resources” to fuel global appetites.

Brazil’s cosmetic testing ban shows that change is possible. It proves that political will and public pressure can align to reject exploitation — at least in one corner of commerce. But the silence around JBS exposes our selective compassion.

If Brazil can outlaw torturing rabbits for mascara, why not question the slaughter of billions for steak? If we can acknowledge that animals aren’t test subjects, why not extend that logic to stop treating them as commodities on a plate?

Celebrating the cosmetic ban is important. But a society that funds meat giants while banning animal tests is a society still deep in denial, clinging to comfort and profit at the expense of both human and non-human lives.

The path forward isn’t complicated: end subsidies for industrial meat, support small-scale and plant-based farmers, enforce living wages, and dismantle the machinery that turns lives — human and non-human — into dividends.

We can’t keep celebrating victories in one arena while ignoring the blood spilled in another. Until every animal is seen as someone, not something, and until every worker is valued over a CEO’s yacht, we have work to do.