posted November 22, 2011 07:09 PM            

Written by Dave Bohon

Tuesday, 01 November 2011 15:00

Shareholders of PepsiCo have filed a resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission in an effort to force the company to stop contracting with a research firm that uses cells from aborted babies in its process of producing artificial flavor enhancers. According to LifeNews.com, Pepsi has “ignored concerns and criticism from dozens of pro-life groups and tens of thousands of pro-life people who voiced their opposition to PepsiCo contracting with biotech company Senomyx even after it was found to be testing their food additives using fetal cells from abortions.”

On its website Senomyx explains that its flavor research 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. 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.”

But Debi Vinnedge of Children of God for Life, a pro-life group that has focused its attention on Pepsi’s relationship with Senomyx, pointed out that what the company does not reveal is that it is “using HEK293 — 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.”

*read the entire article here:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/faith-an d-morals/9596-pepsi-getting-heat-for-use-of-aborted-fetal-cells-in-flavor-research

posted November 23, 2011 12:56 AM            

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Remember, love can conquer the influences of the planets....It can even eliminate karma.

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posted November 23, 2011 06:53 PM            

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Originally posted by RegardesPlatero:
I tend to be skeptical and have my doubts as to the accuracy of such claims; I would expect to see something like that in the "Onion" or "National Enquirer".

I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything, but extremists against reproductive rights often come up with really outrageous things to express their views with the intent of horrifying people into siding with them, and I take those things with a grain of salt. I support a woman's right to make her own decisions about her body and her life, feel that NO woman should be judged for the choice that she makes, feel that we should be compassionate toward women who are in that situation, and should listen to their stories. Banning abortion won't stop abortion; it will just drive women to unsafe practices and will cost women their lives. If the anti-abortion people wanted to reduce the number of abortions, they could try supporting completely comprehensive, UNBIASED, and scientifically accurate sex education, support affordable and safe birth control and safe and affordable access to this, and also allowing those who know that they never want children and who are over the age of 18 to be sterilized (voluntarily). Banning abortion would be useless. Preventing unwanted pregnancies would thus reduce the number of abortions because the pregnancies wouldn't exist in the first place. This would be a more ethical and moral approach as opposed to bullying women, feeding vulnerable women gross misinformation, preying on women in a bad situation, and trying to control women and force them to have unwanted children. Nothing good comes from that and frankly I view this mistreatment of women as cruel and unethical.

I don't drink soda, but not because of outrageous claims like that. It has a lot of empty calories and sugar (or high fructose corn syrup, depending) and you can easily gain a lot of weight. I lost tons of weight once I quit soda cold turkey ten years ago. So yeah, it's not a health food, but not for the reasons that the article mentions.

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posted November 24, 2011 11:11 AM            

You only prove what an ill-informed parrot you are with that nonsense. With any 'right' comes a RESPONSIBILITY. You don't have the RIGHT to behave like a drunken ***** and carelessly bring a life into being and then KILL it for your own convenience. You have a body and you have complete CONTROL of it and with that comes the duty to use it in a way that causes no harm to another person. Period. If you have so little self-restraint and common sense, then maybe you should ask to be sterilized. You KNOW what causes it. If you can't be responsible and abstain or use contraception, then you are no different than the alcoholic that drives drunk and kills the innocent except that he/she is LESS culpable because they just don't care. YOU are willfully ending the life of another human being and no different than any murderer on death row except most of them did it in the heat of the moment without deliberation.
Now bring up those who are raped or incest like that's any excuse to kill the second innocent VICTIM. In other words, the same old tired b.s you always do.

posted November 24, 2011 06:25 PM            

However, to clarify, I started this thread and it wasn`t for the purpose of being rude to others. You are being rude and I`m requesting you tone your posts down to a civil level. Say what you mean but don`t say it mean
Please read Lindaland Rules of Conduct: http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum25/HTML/002442.html

Thank you and happy holidays.

juni

posted November 24, 2011 07:26 PM            

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Senomyx (NASDAQ Ticker symbol: SNMX) is an American biotechnology company that works toward developing additives to amplify certain flavors and smells in foods. Their website claims that it has essentially reverse engineered the receptors in humans that react for taste and aroma, and they are capitalizing on these discoveries to produce chemicals that will make food taste better.

Senomyx was founded by prominent biochemist Lubert Stryer in 1999. In May 2001 Stryer returned to his professorship at Stanford University and resigned from Senomyx, but continues to be the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board.

The company developed Substance 951, a potentiator used to amplify the sweetness of sugar in food products, thereby allowing the manufacturer to reduce the amount of sugar used.

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Backlash from Pro-Life Groups

In March of 2010, it was asserted by the pro-life group Children of God for Life, which monitors the use of cells from aborted babies, that Senomyx uses aborted fetal cells in its products and testing, making use of Human Embryonic Kidney 293 cells (HEK 293). Senomyx has not confirmed this, but the pro-life group cited the Senomyx paper "Human receptors for sweet and umami taste" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Senomyx lists several large corporate partners or "collaborators" on its website, such as PepsiCo and Nestle. Campbell Soup Company had been a corporate partner since 2001, according to the website. In response to a question from the pro-life group about the alleged use of fetal cells, Campbell stated that it had ended its partnership with Senomyx earlier in March. It was not clear if the Campbell's decision had anything to do with the alleged use of fetal cells.

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posted November 25, 2011 03:13 AM            

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Originally posted by RegardesPlatero:
I tend to be skeptical and have my doubts as to the accuracy of such claims; I would expect to see something like that in the "Onion" or "National Enquirer".
I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything, but extremists against reproductive rights often come up with really outrageous things to express their views with the intent of horrifying people into siding with them, and I take those things with a grain of salt

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Looking at that wiki link it looks as though they may have reason to suspect in this case, but even so it's still an allegation.

posted November 25, 2011 10:46 AM            

Still At Large, it doesn`t matter where I posted it, your personality will always shine through . Just play nice now, ok?!!
Thanks

posted November 25, 2011 12:31 PM            

I'm just making the point that in this day and time, when we've got and had the most convenient accessible birth control for everyone for decades, that people shouldn't get a pass like that. It isn't like in the 50's where people knew so little about sex and contraception and it was taboo and not talked about. This whole culture is saturated with sex and things of that nature. Even the children know about such things. What more can we do, seriously?

posted November 25, 2011 03:52 PM            

I do get that those unborn fetus`s we love soon enough become adults. The very adults that we step on when they take an opposite stance from us.

In that vein, I believe we should treat those living in the material world as kind and wise as we do the unborn fetus`s that we love so much

If we differ in beliefs, share ours but with wisdom instead of force.

Perhaps you would wish to start a thread in Sweet Peas specifically regarding abortion?

posted November 25, 2011 11:44 PM            

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Originally posted by stillatlarge:
Cite one case where they've lied

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I really don't know where to begin, save to remind you I said the Christian Right in general, not just specifically pro-life groups. But as just a few examples off the top of my head to start off with, lies about gays:
http://canyonwalkerconnections.com/2010/ten-myths-about-the-glbt-community- a-christian-perspective/

Lies about Planned Parenthood (the video):
http://thelastword.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/08/6436478-rewriting-lies-on-plan ned-parenthood

Lies about places like Hephzibah House which claims no spankings or even worse punishments are practiced but in all likelihood is a lie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QB9ZWM-iq0

Lies about Harry Potter:
http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.asp

For a laugh, Chick tracts (who tell so many lies themselves which are then repeated by their many fans) lied about Dungeons & Dragons, and this site not only exposes their lies but makes fun of them in a MST3K way (Jack Chick sued to get them to take this down but failed):
http://www.humpin.org/mst3kdd/

Then there's where they continually reshape a word to mean whatever they want. For example, they claimed freedom was being denied and the school was backing atheism by not allowing them the right to spread their fliers at school, and won, but then when a Unitarian church used that same freedom they then wanted that liberty squashed and said by allowing them the same freedoms they were once again persecuting Christianity (IOW, they wanted special rights, that they claim to be against, even though what they call "special rights" when they complain about someone other than themselves getting it is typically "equality under the law"). Doing a quick search I found this that sums it up:
http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2007/06/goose-and-gander-cuts-both-ways.html

A more recent example (which will also give another example of a common lie) is the recent "In God We Trust" bill that passed. They claimed it was important to show we're a Christian nation when in the past they claimed that such signs and mottoes were rendered meaningless through repetition and thus not to be challenged as promoting religion. A common lie was that atheism was told by Rep. Trent Franks who equated atheism with wild murderers and destroyers. Here, the Daily Show had the perfect response to that madness:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-3-2011/men-not-at-work

They even go so far as to try to change history books, distort evolution, and the more extreme even seek to change the Bible itself (the Conservapedia Bible Project). Of course the Bible was formed out of a political agenda and has been changed before to reflect the political agendas of the time so this is nothing new, but when you go so far as to change names like "pharisees" into "elites" and other conservative propaganda and take out stories like "let him without sin cast the first stone" (for its "liberal bias") then that goes to a level of lying that shows they don't even respect their own religion.

Anyway, I've definitely listed more than one, and it was easy to do. The hard part is stopping which I'm doing now.

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Originally posted by stillatlarge:
How does that have anything to do with killing the innocent offspring?

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It's an issue of credibility not one of abortion. Of course they hurt their own cause by lying as much as they do so that only true believers take them serious anymore.

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Originally posted by stillatlarge:
In Sweden

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I didn't say it didn't happen there, I said it happened a lot less because there's a lot more social and government support in place that's missing in the USA...and there are a lot less rapes. I believe I was very clear so I think you're intentionally misinterpreting me.

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Originally posted by stillatlarge:
Yet you're willing to call people liars and mentally ill

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Yes, I was suffering insomnia and the influence of brandy and spoke more strongly than I should, but I'll stand by the claim. First, I think it's a reasonable assumption that brain chemistry plays a part (thus "semi psychotic") based on neuroscience. As just one example it was found that people who were very strongly Democrat or Republican experienced neurological distortions with facts so that their brains rewarded them for ignoring facts that would make them question their politics and eagerly accept explanations, no matter how ridiculous, if it confirmed their political bias:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11009379/ns/technology_ and_science-science/t/political-bias-affects-brain-activity-study-finds/

And if that happens in politics, why can't it also happen when its strong feelings about a religion? That is people believing ridiculous things, discounting the obvious, and otherwise acting in a semi-psychotic way because their brain compels them to?

But let me take it further. The 80s and 90s are well documented for their satanic panics (such as In Pursuit of Satan and The Satanic Panic) which included a vast array of religious leaders of the Christian Right spreading lies about having been former satanists in an underground, even an amazing example of a fundie Christian cop who gave a very different account of what went on at neopagan gathering than the other cops there (and it suggests he was downright delusional since I don't think he'd have willfully lied like that when there were too many cops to contradict him and as a cop he'd understand the importance of evidence which was against his claims) and what symbols meant (for example, the peace sign being a "broken and buried cross" and those who wear it knowingly accept Satan, or at least open themselves to demonic forces). This continued into the 90s and at 14 the most outrageous lies were told about me by Christians in the East Texas Bible Belt by both adults and other kids, and to this day I don't know how many of them were willfully lying and how many were having psychotic episodes. As an example, one claimed to have witnessed me killing a cat in a Halloween rite (though she was stunned into silence when I asked why she didn't try to stop me or at least call the cops). Later a high school counselor believed I was the member of a satanic cult who was trying to find a virgin blonde for sacrifice (a common complaint during the satanic panics) and said that my drawing suns, moons, and stars on my jeans with highlighter was "proof" of my satanic allegiance. When I asked her where she got her ridiculous ideas she claimed from a religious newsletter that told her all about my "world." Later, Creationists would not only say I was someone who seduced others into service to satan with sex but that I literally had sex with Satan himself, and lied about the stars and crescent moon that someone else made on a poetry reading flier as being satanic symbols (ie, to enchant the minds of those who read it). They also said the person who made the flier was a witch in service to Satan and it's a sure bet one of them was poisoning her cats. They also sent a girl who got interested in Wicca to a place like Hephzibah House and though I don't know what they did to her she came back seeming to really believe we all took part in satanic rites.

And you think it would be wrong for me to call them semi-psychotic for spreading such lies and even acting on them? As has been documented, what happened to me and others I know isn't isolated to just a few individuals, and because in large part of the Christian Right even Al Gore was once taking a stand against Satanism (at least he publicly backed his wife who was).

What about if instead of talking about satanism they instead said I was an evil shapeshifting lizard from Arcturus here to prepare for the coming invasion? They would have just as much evidence for it and it would be just as true and in all ways similar, save that giving it a Christian paint job by calling me a Satanic witch instead of a shapeshifting lizard from Arcturus makes it more acceptable to people raised to believe in such silly things. If you think it would be psychotic to believe I was a shapeshifting lizard here to prep for an alien invasion of Earth then why wouldn't it also be psychotic to claim I'm a witch who kills animals, seduces people into service to Satan, and literally has sex with demons?

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Originally posted by stillatlarge:
Oh and we all know there are no Jerry Sandusky's <snip>

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