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12/07/2018
Were Food Companies Caught Using Aborted Babies in Flavor Additives?
Products from Pepsi and other major food producers are 'manufactured using the tissue of aborted human babies.
Every time you purchase mass-produced processed “food” from the likes of
Kraft, PepsiCo, or Nestle, you’re choosing, whether you realize it or
not, to feed your family not only genetically engineered poisons and
chemical additives, but also various flavoring agents manufactured using
the tissue of aborted human babies.
It’s true: A company based out of California, known as Senomyx, is in
the business of using aborted embryonic cells to test fake flavoring
chemicals, both savory and sweet, which are then added to things like
soft drinks, candy and cookies. And Senomyx has admittedly partnered
with a number of major food manufacturers to lace its cannibalistic
additives into all sorts of factory foods scarfed down by millions of
American consumers every single day.
Human Embryonic Kidney 293 cells, commonly known as HEK 293,
are a specific cell line which, as the name denotes, were derived from
the kidney cells of an aborted human embryo in 1972. This cell line is
widely used in efforts such as cell biology research and
biotechnology/pharmaceutical development.
Senomyx
is a U.S.-based biotechnology company focused on “discovering and
developing innovative flavor ingredients for the food, beverage, and
ingredient supply industries,” primarily additives that amplify certain
flavors and smells in foods
A controversy over Senomyx originated with the pro-life organization Children of God for Life back in March 2011, which maintained that Senomyx used HEK 293 in its flavor ingredient development efforts (citing a 2002 paper by company researchers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as evidence). That organization called for a boycott of major food companies (including Nestle, Campbell’s Soup, Kraft Foods, and PepsiCo) that had partnered with Senomyx.
Senomyx website states that “The company’s key flavor programs focus on
the discovery and development of savory, sweet and salt flavor
ingredients that are intended to allow for the reduction of MSG, sugar
and salt in food and beverage products … Using isolated
human taste receptors, we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay
systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor
ingredient interacts with the receptor.”
Senomyx notes their collaborators provide them research and
development funding plus royalties on sales of products using their
flavor ingredients.
“What they do not tell the public is that they are using HEK 293
— human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to
produce those receptors,” stated Debi Vinnedge, Executive Director for
Children of God for Life, a pro-life watch dog group that has been
monitoring the use of aborted fetal material in medical products and
cosmetics for years.
“They could have easily chosen COS (monkey) cells, Chinese Hamster
Ovary cells, insect cells or other morally obtained human cells
expressing the G protein for taste receptors,” Vinnedge added.
It’s important to note here that — whatever one might think of fetal
stem cell research in general, and regardless of whether or not Senomyx
uses HEK 293-derived cells in its development efforts — neither Pepsi nor any other U.S. food
company is manufacturing or selling any consumable products “that are
actually made using the cell tissue of unborn babies that were murdered
through abortion.” What we’re talking about here is a cell
line derived from a single (healthy, aborted) fetus over forty years
ago: claiming that current food products employing flavorings derived
from research based on the HEK 293 cell line “are actually
made using the cell tissue of unborn babies” is like saying that
possessing a digitized image of a photocopy of a picture of a Beethoven manuscript is the same as “owning a document in Beethoven’s own handwriting” — the original is not present in substance, only in a multi-generational, representational form. CBS News noted such in a mid-2011 report on the Senomyx controversy (which for some reason primarily focused on PepsiCo).
[Senomyx] appears to be engineering HEK cells to function like the
taste-receptor cells we have in our mouth. This way, Senomyx can test
millions of substances to see if they work as different types of taste
enhancers without subjecting human volunteers to endless taste tests.
To non-scientists this may sound a bit strange, but the reality is that HEK 293
cells are widely used in pharmaceutical research, helping scientists
create vaccines as well as drugs like those for rheumatoid arthritis.
The difference here is that Senomyx’s work for Pepsi is one of the first
times the cells have (potentially) been used to create a food or
beverage. (And it’s important to note that no part of a human kidney
cell are ever a part of Senomyx’s taste enhancers or any finished food
products.)
For Debi Vinnedge, who runs the anti-abortion group Children of God
for Life, that doesn’t matter. “It’s the eeew factor. It strikes a
really strong reaction in people,” she said in an interview.
Even though HEK 293 cells trace their origin to a single fetal kidney
back in the 1970s — everything since has come from cultured cell lines —
Vinnedge considers their use unethical because it indirectly creates a
market for aborted fetuses and encourages scientists to hunt for new
embryonic cell lines. She argues that Senomyx could use other,
non-fetus-based cell lines, such as those from animals.
Science and medicine writer Matthew Herper offered a similar explanation in Forbes:
The fetus-derived cell line we’re talking about was created
around the time I was born. This is 35-year-old technology. And it is
widely used in cell biology. And there is no way you’ll consume them or
that the cells would cause any health problems.
The cells, called HEK 293 cells (that stands for human
embryonic kidney) were taken from an aborted fetus in the 1970s in the
Netherlands. Bits of chopped up DNA from the adenovirus, a virus that
causes a pretty severe cold. The kidney cells were forced to take up
bits of DNA using a technique invented in 1973 that used a calcium
solution. The resulting cells don’t act much like human cells at all,
but they are very easy to work with and have become workhorses of
cellular biology. That’s why they’re used in the development of drugs
and vaccines. No new fetal tissue has been used to keep the cell culture
going; the use of this cell line isn’t leading to new abortions.
A tiny company called Senomyx has been working to use this new
technology to create food additives. Senomyx has isolated receptors
found on cells that detect taste, and added them to the HEK cells. This
allows them to test thousands of potential taste additives to see
whether they might taste sweet or savory with a speed that would be
impossible with human taste testers. Synomyx has announced
collaborations with Pepsi, Nestle, and Coca-Cola.
Senomyx themselves were circumspect about publicly addressing the issue of their whether they actually used the HEK 293 cell line in their research, although reporters investigating the subject noted references to HEK 293 in the company’s patents. For example, Laine Doss wrote in the Miami New Times that:
Asked about the [Children of God for Life’s] action alert, Gwen
Rosenberg, vice president of investor relations and corporate
communications for Senomyx, said, “We don’t discuss details of our
research, but you won’t find anything on our website about HEK293.” I
asked Rosenberg if Senomyx had a position on stem cell research. “We’ve
never been asked that,” she replied, “We don’t have a position on
anything. We’re dedicated to finding new flavors to reduce sugars and
reduce salt. Our focus is to help consumers with diabetes or high blood
pressure have a better quality of life.”
Though Rosenberg states there is nothing on the company website linking Senomyx with HEK293, a little Googling turned up a patent
issued in 2008 for “Recombinant Methods for Expressing a Functional
Sweet Taste Receptor,” in which a line item mentions HEK293.
And Melanie Warner wrote for CBS News that:
Is this claim true? Neither Pepsi nor Senomyx returned calls, so we
don’t know the companies’ side of the story. But a perusal of Senomyx’s
patents suggests that it may well be. All but 7 of the company’s 77 patents refer to the use of HEK 293 (human embryonic kidney) cells, which researchers have used for decades as biological workhorses.
In 2010 Senomyx entered into a four-year collaborative agreement
to develop sweet enhancers and natural high-potency sweeteners for
PepsiCo beverages, but it’s unclear whether PepsiCo has ever marketed
any food products that include additives (of any kind) developed by
Senomyx. It wasn’t until March 2014 that Senomyx announced the first fruits of their partnership with PepsiCo, a sweetness-enhancing “flavor modifier” known as Sweetmyx,
but we’ve seen no subsequent announcement that PepsiCo has begun using
Sweetmyx, and that additive appears to be a purely synthetic one:
Q: How exactly does Sweetmyx work?
A: Our tongue’s taste receptors work somewhat like pieces of a
puzzle. When sugar hits our tongue a molecule of it will connect with a
sweet taste receptor, stimulating the nerve pathway and creating the
sensation of sweet. Sweetmyx hijacks that pathway by agitating and
exciting that sweet taste receptor with another chemical that works when
it’s in the presence of sugar. So in a way, it increases your
receptor’s sensitivity to sweet taste sensations.
Q: Is Sweetmyx natural?
A: Although Senomyx has both “natural” and artificial flavoring
additives in their pipeline, from what I’ve been able to surmise, S617
(the company’s moniker for Sweetmyx) is not a naturally derived
sweetness enhancer. It appears to be artificially synthesized from
chemicals.
Pepsi’s official response to the Senomyx issue was to point inquirers to their Responsible Research Statement,
which stated that “PepsiCo’s research processes and those of our
partners are confidential for competitive reasons. However, PepsiCo does
not conduct or fund research that utilizes any human tissue or cell
lines derived from human embryos.”
We contacted the Media Relations department at PepsiCo and posed some
specific questions to them about their relationship with Senomyx but
received only non-specific answers in response:
PepsiCo has a relationship with Senomyx to help us reduce sugar in
future products. Senomyx does not provide ingredients to PepsiCo, nor
does it manufacture PepsiCo products.
Senomyx is required to abide by our responsible research statement
for any work they conduct for PepsiCo. As with each of our research
partners, Senomyx is also required to meet all relevant industry and
government regulatory standards in the work it performs for PepsiCo.
We can’t speak on behalf of another company or address speculation about work involving other companies.
Senomyx did not respond to our request for additional information.
Sources
Doss, Laine. “Are Aborted Fetus Cells Helping to Make Your Diet Pepsi Sweeter?” Miami New Times. 31 March 2011.
Herper, Matthew. “Biotech’s Fear Factor.” Forbes. 27 January 2012.
Lopez, Ricardo. “No Fetuses in Food: Oklahoma Lawmaker Explains Intent Behind Bill.” Los Angeles Times. 26 January 2012.
Stanford, Duane. “Senomyx Approval to Let PepsiCo Use Sweetmyx Enhancer.” Bloomberg. 11 March 2014.
Warner, Melanie. “Pepsi’s Bizarro World: Boycotted Over Embryonic Cells Linked to Lo-Cal Soda.” CBSNews.com. 3 June 2011.