Last week, dozens of pro-life groups called for a boycott of Pepsi because of information that came to light in March showing biotech company Senomyx was found to be testing their food additives using fetal cells from abortions. Senomyx ignored a letter from the pro-life group Children of God for Life, which complained about its practices.
“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,” the Senomyx web site says. “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.”
Debi Vinnedge, of the pro-life group Children of God for Life, explained, “What they don’t tell the public is that they are using HEK 293 – human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to produce those receptors. They could have easily chosen animal, insect, or other morally obtained human cells expressing the G protein for taste receptors.”
After contacting Pepsi with their concerns, the beverage and food products company responded via email to pro-life advocates with an unsigned form response from “Pepsi Consumer Relations.”
“Thank you for contacting us to share your sincere concerns,” the PepsiCo response says. “Please be assured that PepsiCo is committed to using only the highest ethical methods in all aspects of our research. This is something we take very seriously, and we hold ourselves and all of our research partners to the same high standards as the world’s leading research centers.”
http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/30/pepsi-ignores-criticism-on-use-of-aborted-cells-in-research/
Please see my post from Sunday, May 29, and send an e-mail to those who are listed at the end of the article.