I’ve just learned a new phrase today – immortalized cells.
As it turns out, normal human and animal cells die-out in a lab after dividing themselves just a few dozen times (something called “senescence“).
That’s where Big-Pharma needs something called the aforementioned immortalized cells.
But before I go any further, know that the Biden government as well as the Associated Press have given this FrankenFood a hearty two-thumbs up.
Golly gee. I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel a damn sight better.
But on with the show.
In spite of reporter Joe Fassler of Bloomberg News (via TheFern.org) giving an overall approval to lab-grown meat, he at least gave the other side of the coin a look (emphasis mine);
“Despite the informal scientific consensus around the safety of immortalized cells, there just aren’t any long-term health studies to prove it.”
Fassler dances around what exactly immortalized cells are for a few paragraphs, then tip-toes ever so gingerly telling us exactly what they are;
That’s where immortalized cells come in. They’ve been used in medical research since the early 1950s, when the first and most famous immortal cell line—derived from the cervical cancer cells of a woman named Henrietta Lacks—was successfully grown in a lab. Lacks is widely viewed as a victim of failed medical ethics and systemic racism; her cells, which have gone on to generate billions of dollars in economic value, were taken without her knowledge or permission.
Blah, blah, blah… yadda, yadda, yadda. Then Fassler conveniently blows through telling us everything;
They’ve also saved lives. The so-called HeLa line of cells first enabled researchers to continue study without fresh samples from living humans or animals, leading to breakthrough discoveries in oncological and immunological science. Today, AstraZeneca Plc and J&J’s Covid-19 vaccines are grown using immortalized human kidney and retinal cells, respectively. The process is a lot like making cultured meat. Immortal cells are grown in a big steel drum called a bioreactor, ultimately generating thousands of pounds of cell mass.
But wait. Did Fassler say if the immortalized human kidney and retinal cells were cancerous or not?
Joe, what exactly were the starter cells used in that “big steel drum called a bioreactor”? He certainly has implied that the only “immortalized cells” are cancer cells.
This is where it starts to give you the heebie-jeebies;
“The leading startups, for their part, are pressing ahead, nodding to their potential vulnerability with the occasional creepy waiver. At Upside’s facility in Emeryville, California, where the company spends weeks at a time growing poultry cells in drums, investors and pesky reporters tasting a cooked version of the final product have been asked to first acknowledge the lack of long-term health data. “The cultured meat and related food products in the Tasting are experimental,” the company’s waiver reads. “The properties are not completely known.”
Now it really gets uber-heebie-jeebie;
“And yet “cancer” is a terrifying word. How can the makers of cultured meat prove to regulators and skeptics that there’s nothing to worry about? “The best way is to give it to people and then ask them 20 years later or 30 years later, ‘Has any of you gotten cancer at a higher-than-normal rate?’ ” says Robert Weinberg [of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. “But that’s not a practical experiment.”
Folks, just as soon as the Biden Administration and the AP gave this their official seal of approval, the “practical experiment” just began.