G-Protein Model
There is a growing chorus from within the pro-life movement against PepsiCo for their use of a cell line (derived from a baby aborted in the 1970’s) for testing response to new flavors in the lab. This is biologically straightforward, and ethically problematic. From a consumerist and moral perspective, it’s even murkier. Pepsi is just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s build the argument from the biological level, upward.
BIOLOGY
Taste testing is as simple as stimulus and response. We eat/drink something new, and our taste buds either love us, or hate us for the experience. If we zoom in closer on the taste buds of the tongue, we would see that they are made up of many cells. If we zoom in even further on the cells, we come to the apparatus at the surface of the cell responsible for interacting with molecules in food, and creating a response within the cell that will be transmitted to the brain.
This apparatus is pictured above, and is at the core of the ethical debate. The two solid green, parallel lines represent the membrane of the cell. The purple ‘signaling agonist’ at top left is our food molecule. It binds to a receptor molecule that only binds molecules of a very specific shape and size. That receptor then slides to the right and interacts with G-Proteins, which activate other molecules such as Inositol Triphosphate, which in turn triggers what amounts to the old “Mousetrap” game–a cascade of responses within the cell.
It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the fundamental mechanism in question here.
HEK 293 Cells
PepsiCo employs the biotech company, Senomyx, to do their taste testing. Senomyx uses a line of cells that are derived from the kidney of an aborted baby in the 1970’s. The cell line is designated HEK (Human Embryonic Kidney) 293 (isolated and cultured successfully in the researcher’s 293rd experiment. These cells were isolated from the aborted baby’s kidneys and then grown and replicated in the laboratory in a liquid nutrient broth called cell culture medium. As long as one changes the broth periodically, the cells will continue to grow and divide.
In research, certain cell lines become the standard for use in a given field. Typically, the cells that become the standard, such as HEK 293 are remarkably stable, easy to work with, and provide reliable and repeatable results. These characteristics enable researchers to pursue tangential and parallel lines of research with great confidence in the relatedness of different labs’ results when the same cell line is employed. It assures us that we are all speaking the same cellular language, and not different dialects.
Hence the very thing that is a strength can also be a liability if cell lines have base and illegitimate origins. HEK cells are the standard in many fields of research. They are especially good at being used as “living test tubes” for creating proteins, such as the G Protein used in taste sensation.
Senomyx has been able to produce the G proteins within these cells and then isolate these proteins. They have then used these proteins in a proprietary construct to get a test tube response system to different molecules used in flavoring. Therein lies the tastelessness of the research method. The question is whether or not other cell lines exist, from which the same results may be gleaned, and how reliable these alternatives may be.
ETHICS
Let’s look for a moment at the problem of vaccines manufactured in aborted fetal cell lines. It has been suggested in some Catholic circles that the distance between today and the abortion from decades ago that established the cell line, and the proportional good to be gained and evil to be averted through use of the cell line vaccines can be sufficient to merit the use of the vaccines and attenuate complicity and culpability in the abortion. Some might agree, and some might disagree. I’ve heard Catholic bioethicists and clergy on both sides of this issue. But the issue begs a deeper question.
The more that HEK 293 is used (and it is used rather ubiquitously now), how many products are we morally obliged to refrain from using? How many medical treatments, with no ethically sound alternative, must we forgo? HEK 293 is used to manufacture proteins in thousands of labs, and is omnipresent. What do we do with a field already saturated by the use of aborted cell lines?
Obviously, we need ethically sound alternatives that produce the same quality output as the aborted cell lines, so that we may have the scientific basis for a smooth and orderly transfer. Then we need to change the culture of science, which will be no easy feat.
The next issue is what to do about all of the food products that have already been developed using these questionable methods. Even if Pepsi breaks ties with Senomyx, and cleans up their act, do we boycott all foods developed before the conversion?
For now the issue is pretty simple. Pepsi is committed to Senomyx, and I’m more than a few pounds overweight and just starting to shed those pounds. I won’t be purchasing PepsiCo products in the near future, or even the distant future, and even though this research leaves a bad taste in my mouth, the core question remains:
As these cell lines grow in use, where do we draw the line?
Coming Home 
That is a good question. I hope that if enough of us stand against evil, companies will create alternatives if only out of the profit motive.
One helpful thing is that light banishes darkness. When people here that vaccines are made using aborted babies, even if they are pro-choice, they say “ew.” If they have the choice between a vaccine manufactured using a dead baby and one manufactured using an egg, they’ll make the right choice unless they are an extreme leftist ideologue. No one wants to inject their 18-month-old with something that may contain parts of a dead fetus. When people hear “Pepsi tests their products on dead babies,” they say, “Always Coca-cola.” Ethical alternatives will lead to the elimination of bad alternatives.
I do think there’s only so much we can do–you have a point there. So many donate to Planned Parenthood, so many support killing babies for research, and most of us can’t go live off the grid in the woods and make our clothes and grow our food. I love my kids but I don’t use unethical vaccine because I know that the children who died and whose bodies were used to make the vaccines had no choice, no hope, no voice, and no less value than my son and my daughter. But it is removed enough that if I needed to have them vaccinated for legal reasons (such as adoption), or if I thought it was likely they would catch a life-threatening disease, I would have them fully vaccinated.
Since I heard about this it’s been much on my mind. Thanks for posting about it. It’s easy enough for me, a Coke guy anyway, to avoid Pepsi. It’s not hard to switch from Quaker Oats to generic. Nobody really needs Lays potato chips, or any other brand for that matter. What bothers me is the basis on which I decide. Simplest is a gut reaction: what Pepsi and Senomyx are doing is just nasty; they will get no money from me. Another man might reason that boycotting Pepsi over this might encourage them to use ethical alternatives; that it isn’t immoral to do business with PepsiCo or to drink Pepsi, but boycotting them now helps the cause. Or, maybe it is simply immoral to do business with anyone who profits from abortion. I look forward to learning what others think.
My only thought during the reading of this post was who was the baby that was killed in the 70’s.
From that child’s vantage point in Heaven what does he or she think of the use of the bodies of little ones for profit?
It seems to me that from the ethical perspective the only perceptible evil to be had by purchasing Pepsi products is one of scandal.
This appears very similar to the issue of “snowflake babies,” et al., where no actual evil is procured by engaging the products of prior, overtly evil actions.
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Dr. Nadal,
I’ve been in contact with Theresa Deisher about the aborted fetal cell lines for vaccines and she says that Merck already has patented vaccines using ethical mediums, I.e. not using aborted fetal cell lines. The issue is their pocketbook. It is easier and established to produce the vaccines as they do now, but they could relatively easily change that with enough of a demand from us parents. We have a right to demand ethical vaccines and products, an obligation actually.
There’s also a real question of safety too since the vaccines are contaminated with human DNA which can undergo homologous recombination with the consumer’s own DNA. Is this also true for Pepsico products? I don’t know.
You may have seen it already, but there are some good resources here. It’s no secret that aborted fetuses are now medical commodities.
Thank you for covering this.
Stacy
Hi Stacy,
Thanks for the information on Merck. With vaccines made by growing viruses inside of cells, yeas, there is a chance that human DNA and proteins from those cells may be present as contaminants when the viruses are harvested from the cells. In the case of the food products, there is absolutely no concern here. The food products are made at the plant using the food ingredients much the same as we cook our meals at home. The lab part is a separate issue where certain flavors are being tested using proteins grown in the HEK 293 cell line. The lab testing merely informs the company’s development team as to what flavors have potential.
Thanks for all of the great work that you do, Stacy.
God Bless
Nestle Research Center in 2007
Artificial sweeteners and salts producing a metallic taste sensation activate TRPV1 receptors~ Hence, TRPV1 activation could be involved in the AS aftertaste or even contribute to the poorly understood metallic taste sensation. Using Ca(2+) imaging on TRPV1 receptors heterologously expressed in the human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells and on dissociated primary sensory neurons, we find that in both systems, AS activate TRPV1 receptors, and, moreover, they sensitize these channels to acid and heat http://1.usa.gov/lkLRf6
Couldnt do a search on the Nestle Research Center website for HEK239 it kept coming up error. http://www.research.nestle.com/ But on the Nestlé Nutrition Council, Japan website I did a HEK search 3 pages worth of links came up. Can anyone read Japanese? http://searches.nestle.co.jp/?ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Enestle%2Eco%2Ejp%2Fscience%2Ftopics%2Ftopics0610%5F1%2Ehtm&kw=HEK%20&ie=u
Another company Redpoint Bio is focused on the development of healthier foods and beverages http://www.redpointbio.com/home_flash.shtml used the aborted HEK239 cells in their research ~ Triphenylphosphine oxide is a potent and selective inhibitor of the transient receptor potential melastatin-5 ion channel
Redpoint Bio Inc., Ewing, New Jersey 08628, USA.
Using recombinant TRPM5-expressing cells in a fluorescence imaging pla…te reader-based membrane potential assay, we identified triphenylphosphine oxide (TPPO) as a selective and potent inhibitor of TRPM5. TPPO inhibited both human (IC₅₀=12μM) and murine TRPM5 (IC₅₀=30μM) heterologously expressed in HEK293 cells, but had no effect (up to 100μM) on the membrane potential responses of TRPA1, TRPV1, or TRPM4b. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21158685
Redpoint Signs License and Commercialization Agreement with International Flavors & Fragrances
IFF granted 5 year exclusivity period to commercialize sweetness enhancer
http://investor.shareholder.com/redpointbio/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=483953 On the IFF website is list of products they have http://www.iff.com/internet.nsf/Products!OpenForm IF anyone wants to contact IFF about Redpoint Bio Inc http://www.iff.com/internet.nsf/contact_us!OpenForm
Thank you Dr. Nadal, That’s good to know about the food products. I left off a link in the earlier post. http://www.soundchoice.org/education.html
This book helped me to better understand the philosophical issues involved in the ethics of abortion. It included every pro-choice argument I’ve heard as well as some pro-life arguments I hadn’t heard before. It’s the most thorough set of arguments from both sides I’ve ever read.
Thank you sharing this. It’s not a surprise that the establishment press hasn’t covered this. Ultimately, the globalist oligarchies rely upon advancements in eugenics to pave the way for more power. To look at Pepsico and these other pharm-food mafias objectively, we have drop the argument that they are only doing this to edge out the soft drink competition. Pepsico is one of several globalist entities that answer to the most criminal elitist groups in history, including the Bilderberg Group, and the Rockafeller and Rothschild families