Aborted fetus' used in cosmetics???

[Evanescence]

Ok, bear with me here people...

My dad and I got into a little riff about this thing he heard some 25+ yrs ago that aborted fetus' in Europe were being used in cosmetics or some sort...

I said I didnt believe it..sounds like an urban legend...

BUT...

Here IS an article on it...

http://www.endowmentmed.org/content/view/615/33/

The source is a PRO-LIFE outfit...

Lets get tot he bottom of it....what do they do and is this really happening. Lets keep it non-biased and non-emotional...facts and figures will lead us to the truth.

Go!

[freakysoccer]

if true, that's absolutely discusting...horrible. E, where do you find this stuff? i don't even know what to think about this.

[HotWireD]

I have not gone off to look, but I recall many years ago - probably about twenty-five plus years, that some cosmetics firms were using foetal tissue from lambs (and possibly from placental tissue (the umbilical cord) too) for some sort of rejuvenation processes.

At the time the regular science press said it was unscientific - now (present day) stem cells from umbilical cords are used in research for rejuvenation processes.

Paranoid head on...

I have a suspicion that embryos left over from fertility treatment may be used in research or for private gain - if the doctors harvest many eggs from a female and only use some, I can see them pressurising the donor to allow them to have the others for research - they would have given the donor a child and I can see emotional blackmail being used to get hold of the spare eggs.

These eggs can be fertilised, grown for a short period in vitro and then the resultant cells harvested for research.

If a person is rich enough, they may be able to get hold of rejuvenation processes created using these cells - the cells are, in fact the property of the fertility/research clinic who has grown them - for all intents and purposes they could use them for whatever they want.

That is why we need very strict laws and very strict punishments for abusers of these processes.

Watch out for rich people who start to live extra longer - we could end up with a two tier society where one strata lives longer on the unborn babies of the less well off who donate eggs just to afford to live a normal length life...

Having typed all that, newer stem cell research indicates that embryonic stem cells may not be required - they can now create them from cells removed from an adult.

Cynical head on...
Having typed that, if it is easier (or cheaper) to harvest embryos they (the interested parties) will argue for the laws to allow them to use embros.

Welcome to the Brave New World.

Edit: I can find no references to "Susan Barrington" and embryos other than on pro-life websites, so this may not be true (about paying people to have babies up to twelve weeks before aborting them specifically for cosmetic rejuvenation processes).

However, the concept of using aborted foetus tissue from babies not specifically grown for this , or from babies grown in vitro for a few days to provide stem cells has been mentioned in the press before as a possible scenario in the future, I am sure I recall discussions on the ethics of it on the radio.

[HotWireD]

Colin Blakemore - is a real person so there may be some truth to the articles - the scientist quoted in the article linked to by E, above wrote this comment in the UK Newspaper 'The Independent'

His speciality is research into vision and restoring sight. One of the avenues they are researching is the use of embryonic stem cells in this work. Since they can now create stem cells from adult tissue I do not know why the researchers are still pressing to be able to use embryonic cells.

(whole comment at other end of this link...
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/colin-blakemore-from-a-scientists-point-of-view-life-is-getting-better-430676.html
For stem cells - to be more specific, human embryonic stem cells - the barriers to progress are not economic but moral. On the one hand, medical science offers the hope of cellular immortality - the prospect of repairing a damaged brain, heart or pancreas, just as grazed skin or a bitten tongue already mends itself. On the other hand, a substantial cohort of politicians and religious leaders (more exactly Catholic and fundamentalist Protestant leaders), especially in the United States and some European countries, fiercely oppose the taking of life in the interests of other lives.

Although the argument seems different from that for climate change, the crux of the problem is again the power of intuition and assertion over the rationality of science. I have heard a "pro-life" lobbyist describe the collecting of stem cells from 10-day-old embryos, surplus to the requirements of in-vitro fertilisation, as "the evisceration of little babies". Life, it is argued, begins at the moment of conception.

Most scientists would surely argue that an embryo, never to be implanted in the uterus, smaller than the point of a needle, without a single nerve cell, let alone any viscera, cannot possibly be considered a person. Defining the starting point of life is not a matter of dogma but of social consensus. As my friend, the Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel put it: "Life begins when the kids are all through college and the dog dies!".

Given these entrenched positions, why should I be optimistic about a change in attitude to stem cell research in 2007? Because morality is, for all but the most stubbornly impervious to practical evidence, a matter of utilitarian dialectic. Yesterday's moral outrage has a way of becoming today's necessary evil and tomorrow's common good. Just as with climate change, what will cause a swing of attitude is the turning point of a mathematical function; in this case the shifting ratio of perceived benefit to theoretical cost.

So, they are thinking of using surplus embryos - not for cosmetic processes, but other rejuvenation and healing processes.

I would have a concern about a doctor who decides these things who makes light of the moral dilema of whether a ten day old foetus is a living thing or not by quoting "Life begins when the kids are all through college and the dog dies!" and then acknowledges that it IS the taking of life by stating 'fiercely oppose the taking of life in the interests of other lives'.

Yeah, lets use orphans then - they're unwanted too.

He also states 'offers the hope of cellular immortality' - to those that can pay I am sure - this will never be offered free to the unwashed masses, maybe certain doctors, scientists, politicians who are to valuable to the NWO will be offered it.

I have an idea - Nobel prize winners get it free, and ones who can afford it gets to live 'forever'. The world will be full of old genuises and rich folk.

I am signing off before I get too cynical.

[Evanescence]

Still not too sure about all this....and no time right now to study.

A simple Google search yielded it...and again, not sure of the source...

It looks like a strand of truth in this rumor though...and thats sad, very sad.

[Buttabean]

I don't have any time to do research, but I know of some "youth serums" that use baby's foreskin in their products for "enhancement" purposes. And they use animal placenta in a multitude of products (shampoo, for example). I've never heard of the use of human embryos or fetuses being used in products though. :eek: