Opposing Views: OPINION:Group Claims Aborted Fetal Tissue Used in Anti-Wrinkle Creams

Group Claims Aborted Fetal Tissue Used in Anti-Wrinkle Creams

By Christian News Wire , Nation's Religious Press Leader - October 27, 2009

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TENNESSEE -- Children of God for Life announced today that Neocutis, a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on dermatology and skin care is using aborted fetal cell lines to produce several of their anti-aging skin creams.

"It is absolutely deplorable that Neocutis would resort to exploiting the remains of a deliberately slaughtered baby for nothing other than pure vanity and financial gain," stated Executive Director Debi Vinnedge. "There is simply no moral justification for this."

For years Children of God for Life has been a watchdog on pharmaceutical companies using aborted fetal cell lines in medical products and they have received thousands of inquiries from the public on the use of aborted fetal material in cosmetics.

Until now, this was the first time they have encountered any company bold enough to put the information right on their own website and product literature. A quick investigation into the science behind the products revealed the shameless data.

Neocutis' key ingredient known as "Processed Skin Proteins" was developed at the University of Luasanne from the skin tissue of a 14-week gestation electively-aborted male baby donated by the University Hospital in Switzerland. Subsequently, a working cell bank was established, containing several billion cultured skin cells to produce the human growth factor needed to restore aging skin. The list of products using the cell line include: Bio-Gel, Journee, Bio-Serum, Prevedem, Bio Restorative Skin Cream and Lumiere. But Vinnedge is calling for a full boycott of all Neocutis products, regardless of their source.

"There is absolutely no reason to use aborted babies for such selfish motives," Vinnedge said. "It is anti-life, anti-woman and counter-productive as Neocutis is about to find out!"

Children of God for Life is calling on rival cosmetic companies to take advantage of some free advertising by their company.

"We know there are companies using moral sources for collagen and skin proteins. We intend to publicly promote these other cosmetic companies competing with Neocutis that are willing to step forward and contact us."

Meanwhile Vinnedge advises women who are using Neocutis products to throw them in the garbage and to contact the company to express their concerns.

In addition she advised, "Contact some of these competing companies and ask them to verify their products are morally produced. If they are willing to commit to it in writing, they will get our endorsement."

Contact Neocutis:
Neocutis Inc.
3053 Fillmore Street # 140
San Francisco CA 94123
Phone: 1-866-636-2884

Further Information is published at the following links:
http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/129015/files/ExpGer-Lee(2009).pdf
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17269452
www.neocutis.com/categories.php?catid=11
www.neocutis.com/article.php?sid=15

Regarding Article

OPINION:Group Claims Aborted Fetal Tissue Used in Anti-Wrinkle Creams

cosmetics

I'm not sure why they are using human fetal cell cultures for this purpose. Fetal bovine cultures, I'd conjecture, would be just as effective since only a few lines of DNA separate bovine and humans. Just to explain how similar they are. It is possible to grow a human embryo inside a cows egg and the resulting chimera will be over 99% human.

Why bother with the controversy. I think it's probably based on that from a marketing perspective, human cell cultures would seem more applicable to limiting aging in the eyes of their consumers.

It's important to note that many of the vaccines we use were developed from aborted fetus cell cultures. Based on three abortions, two voluntary (not done for the purpose of providing the diploid cells to researchers though) and one involuntary we have produced millions of fetal cell cultures and this comprises almost all of the medical supply of fetal cell tissue (and I guess cosmetic). Countless vaccines have been made with these 3 lines and research into genetics, recombinant DNA, cancer and HIV /AIDs research are also possible with these 3 lines. While there are some alternatives, in some cases none exist for necessary vaccines. Many companies use chick embryos (or sometimes monkeys) for their vaccines because of respect for the ethics of their customers (and they are substantially more difficult to use btw), but sometimes there are no alternatives. These 3 cell culture lines have saved hundreds of thousands of people (perhaps millions) either directly by creating vaccines and treatments or by providing the necessary research to create treatments.

And important ethical question for people against this is, do the lives of 3 fetus' less than 14 weeks old (and one less than 7 weeks old) outweigh the benefits of saving hundreds of thousands or millions of lives when the purpose of the fetus death was never for medical research ?

Anyway, the fetuses weren't killed for cosmetic purposes, or any purpose for that matter, other than the mother didn't want them over 40 years ago, but does that mean we should ignore any benefits of their death that come with it?

- caelum October 27, 2009 1:05PM

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- It seems to me,
  
  That their objections are based on moral absolutism, instead of the intellectual honesty and ethical integrity that we base our positions on.
  
  I'm not saying it's "right", I'm saying it is.
  
  - Rice klowN October 27, 2009 1:30PM
  
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