Aleve is a pain reliever made by Bayer-Monsanto, a pharmaceutical and biotechnology conglomerate, which isn’t the most vegan-friendly to put it lightly.
Bayer tests many things on animals, and are generally horrendous from an unethical-vegan perspective, so I’d advise buying a generic version instead of Aleve just on principle, however Aleve is not necessarily non-vegan. This is because certain varieties do not contain any animal ingredients, and animal testing is not being done, nor may have even been done under Bayer their self.
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So Is Aleve Vegan?
It’s really a gray-area on if Aleve is in fact vegan, but the way I look at it is when you buy a vegan-option from a non-vegan fast food chain like Carls Jr you’re supporting a company that buys and sells meat just like buying Aleve from a company that does animal testing.
It’s definitely not ideal, and a generic is preferable, just like eating at a vegan restaurant, but it’s not non-vegan to have Aleve. It’s normal tablet variety that is, there are some versions of Aleve that are not vegan friendly.
What Varieties of Aleve aren’t Vegan then?
Both the Gel Caps and the Liquid-Gel varieties contain gelatin, which is made from boiled animal bones and ligaments, and thus they definitely aren’t vegan-friendly. All the others, including the PM, back-pain, Sinus, and all that should be free of animal ingredients though.
Just keep in mind, ideally if you’re going out to buy some new ones pick a generic version instead of supporting Aleve’s manufacturer Bayer due to them conducting animal-tests for their other products.
Personally I’d recommend just buying Goodsense’s Naproxen Tablets, as they’re vegan-friendly and significantly cheaper (per tablet) than the name-brand. They’re made out of the exact same stuff as Aleve is, but their manufacturer (Goodsense) doesn’t conduct animal tests as they’re simply a manufacturer of generic drugs rather than brand-name drugs.
Due to government regulations generics and name-brands are supposed to have the same potency and in my experience — atleast with goodsense — they do, so really buying theirs is a no-brainer both in terms of being extra-vegan about it and saving a bit of money.
