Senomyx is a biotechnology company that develops “innovative flavor ingredients for the food, beverage, and ingredient supply industries using [their] unique proprietary technologies.” They have ”exclusive or co-exclusive product discovery and development collaborationswith Ajinomoto Co. Inc.; Cadbury Adams USA LLC, a unit of Kraft Foods Inc.; Firmenich SA; Nestlé SA; PepsiCo; and Solae.”
In order to make “cutting edge” new flavors for their clients’ products, Senomyx tests their new ‘flavors’ on “isolated human taste receptors”. If you are envisioning lines of people forming to try a new flavor of ice-cream, think again. The “isolated human taste receptors” are human yes; they are Human Embryonic Kidney 293 cells, known as HEK 293. These human embryonic kidney cells were obtained from a healthy aborted fetus from the early 1970′s.
So to summarize: Senomyx uses human embryonic kidney cells from a baby who was voluntarily aborted in the 1970′s to test out their invented flavor enhancers to better enable their collaborators to “achieve a competitive advantage and/or improve the nutritional profile of their products while maintaining or enhancing taste.”
So, when exactly does the slope start to get slippery enough for people to stop climbing it?
According to Wikipedia, Senomyx has not confirmed this, but they are also not denying it either because they know it is the truth. (Just search for HEK 293 and Senomyx and there you have it). Yes the FDA knows about this. In their opinion, as well as many other ‘scientists’, HEK 293 cells are “the most commonly used cell line in the production of biologics” and because of their unique transformative abilities they “may provide a novel approach for quality assessment.”
Their atrocious secret is out thanks to the Pro-life watchdog group, Children of God for Life‘s Action Alert: Biotech company using aborted fetal cell lines to test its flavor enhancers (includes a list and contact information of companies that collaborate with Senomyx that should be either boycotted and courteously asked to discontinue their partnership with Senomyx)
And the word caught on pretty quickly:
Children of God for Life Calls for a Boycott
(see this important Boycott Update)
Even the Miami Times was shocked enough by this. Are Aborted Fetus Cells Helping to Make Your Diet Pepsi Sweeter?
Company Uses Cells From Abortions to Test Artificial Flavors
Plug Senomyx and HEK 293 into your Google Search or Swagbucks Search to see more articles and information on this and write to those companies and ask them, as a consumer, to discontinue their partnership with company with that uses such repulsive research practices.
Well done, E. Concise and poignant. I shared this on my FB.
Thanks Monica. It’s so deplorable and I was sad to have to write about it but it’s important for the world to understand what’s going on. Thanks for sharing it! Did you get any comments?