Posted on 05/26/2011 11:25:27 AM PDT by GonzoII
2011-05-25
For Immediate Release May 25, 2011
Pro-Life Groups Call for Pepsi Boycott over Aborted Fetal Cell Lines
(Largo, FL) Scores of prolife groups are calling for a public boycott of food giant, PepsiCo due to their partnership with Senomyx, a biotech company using aborted fetal cells in the research and development of artificial flavor enhancers.
Pepsi is funding the research and development – and paying royalties to Senomyx which uses HEK-293 (human embryonic kidney cells) to produce flavor enhancers for Pepsi beverages.
Senomyx boasts they have over 800,000 unique flavors for foods. The human tongue recognizes only 5 (salty, savory, sweet, sour and bitter). But cells expressing certain proteins produce a chemical signal when the flavors are introduced, which determines if they have achieved the proper flavor. The aborted fetal cells are not in the product itself.
“There are many options PepsiCo could be using instead of aborted fetal cells, including animal, insect, or other morally obtained human cells,” noted Debi Vinnedge, President of Children of God for Life, the group spearheading the boycott. The revelation—a potential public relations nightmare—motivated Campbell Soup to sever all relations with Senomyx.
However, PepsiCo continues their business relationship despite the abortion connection. Their response earlier this year drew public ire when they wrote that “our collaboration with Senomyx is strictly limited to creating lower-calorie, great-tasting beverages for consumers.”
When pressed further, PepsiCo attempted to pacify angry consumers with a form letter response in which they insinuated they had been accused of conducting aborted fetal tissue research. Their duplicity again drew public outrage.
Bradley Mattes, executive director of Life Issues Institute, said, “While aborted fetal cells aren’t actually in the product itself, the close relationship is enough to repulse most consumers. To our knowledge, this is the first time a food product has been publicly associated with abortion.”
The pro-life groups noted that additional companies collaborating with Senomyx will likely be targeted for boycott at a later date. See www.cogforlife.org/senomyxalert.htm for more information.
Pro-life organizations are asking the public to boycott all Pepsi drink products and encourage consumers to contact Pepsi management requesting that they sever all ties with Senomyx. Consumers are also encouraged to contact Campbell Soup and thank them for responding to pro-life concerns.
Jamie Caulfield, Sr. VP
PepsiCo, Inc.
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577
(914) 253-2000
Email form: http://cr.pepsi.com/usen/pepsiusen.cfm?time=5189878
Edmund M. Carpenter, Chair, Corporate Development
Campbell Soup
1 Campbell Place
Camden, NJ 08103-1701
1-800-257-8443
Email form: http://campbellsoupcompany.com/Feedback.aspx
Pro-life groups joining Children of God for Life in the boycott to date are: American Life League, Life Issues Institute, Concerned Women for America, Colorado Right to Life, American Right to Life, Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, ALL Arizona, Central Nebraskans for Life, Pro-Life Waco, Houston Coalition for Life, Mother and Unborn Baby Fox Valley, Womankind, Billboards for Life, Movement for a Better America, Defenders of the Unborn, Focus Pregnancy Help Center, Idaho Chooses Life, EMC Frontline Pregnancy Centers of NY, Four Seasons for Life, CREDO, Life Choices, STOPP Dallas, CA Right To Life, Human Life Alliance, International Right to Life Federation, Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation.
ABSOLUTELY SICK!!
Not only that, what about all the CO2 they release into the atmosphere?
WHAT DO YOU THINK THOSE “CARBONATED” BUBBLES ARE????
(I never drink coke or pepsi, so dont want anyone else to drink them either)
I thought the “Monster” beverages were a fright — but this is truly macabre. Is there any reason these flavoring chemicals are being produced THIS way, other than to prove that they can be? Pepsi should saw off Senomyx pronto.
Ping.
Pepsi cares only about appeasing gays and selling lots of soda to minorities. The biggest joke is that many employees are conversative and won’t like this at all.
Indra Nooyi is selling it down the river.
Let her know:
I guess whatever returns the greatest value to the share holder is fine... /sarc
I vaguely remember reading that Pepsi has stopped doing business with the company. I may be wrong.
In the meantime, what is their rival Coke doing? Coke tastes lousier than Pepsi in the diet version, but the full calorie version of Coke beats the pants off of Pepsi.
This sounds upon re-reading like Pepsi is using these, urgh, aborted fetal kidney cells to “taste test” their prototype diet sodas. Why this is supposed to work better than conventional live human taste testers is beyond me.
But if Pepsi wants to “sell lots of soda to minorities” (heck, they were known as an Afro-American drink several decades ago in many cities) why should that be skin off of any of our noses?
> “Senomyx which uses HEK-293 (human embryonic kidney cells)
> to produce flavor enhancers for Pepsi beverages.”
God have mercy.
If this is true, bad things are gonna happen.
Vaccine makers do the same thing. They use cloned human embryonic lung cells to create their concoctions. I lost my link to the list when my computer crash, but as of 2009 there were no chicken pox vaccines or MMR (I’m not 100% positive) vaccines without these cells.
I haven’t drank them in years, and warn everyone I know, especially Pepsi who also have a political agenda.
My point is that Pepsi does not care if their supplier is using aborted fetal cells in testings. It only cares about selling its product and being gay-friendly. Everything else goes to the wayside.
No Pepsi for me today, thanks.
Heck, I started boycotting Pepsi a few years ago over their relationship with Obama during his campaign.
“....using aborted fetal cells in the research and development of artificial flavor enhancers.”
.
Humanity has reached its end point — we have finally started to eat our own.
I’m hearing conflicting reports — that Pepsi quietly stopped the macabre “taste tests” when consumer uproar reached a critical mass, or that the tests are kept up to this day and this is now a Rip Van Winkle alarm that surfaces periodically from writings of long ago.
I thought it was tom cat pee (duck’n & runn’n)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.