Human Foreskins are Big Business for Cosmetics
Foreskin fibroblasts are used to grow and cultivate new cells that are then used for a variety of purposes. From the fibroblasts new skin for burn victims can be grown, skin to cover diabetic ulcers, and controversially it is also used to make cosmetic creams and collagens. One foreskin can be used for decades to grow $100,000 worth of fibroblasts.
Debate is growing over the ethics of using human foreskins for cosmetic purposes. One such cosmetic company, SkinMedica is raising a stir over their use of the growth hormone left over from growing artificial skin from foreskin fibroblasts. Dr. Fitzpatrick, who invented SkinMedica, works with a supplier that uses foreskin fibroblast to make injectable collagen. The foreskins that he receives the growth hormone for are used especially for cosmetics rather than for growing new skin for medical patients.
SkinMedica, which sells for over $100 for a 63-oz. bottle, was made famous by Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. Winfrey in fact has promoted SkinMedica several times on her show and website. Discussions about the ethics of using human foreskins for vanity have been circulating on the web but there has not been a response from Winfrey on this debate.
Dr. Fitzpatrick says that using foreskins was simply a choice of convenience. "It doesn't matter if you get a fibroblast from the eyelid, the cheek, the foot or the foreskin," Fitzgerald said in an interview. "That cell is still a fibroblast; it does the same thing. Foreskins were used because that is a common surgery and the skin is thrown away, so why not use it for benefits? Twelve years ago when this was done, there would have been no objection to using foreskin tissue." But now that circumcision rates in Canada have dropped below 10 percent and rates in the United States are dropping foreskins are not as convenient anymore. Newborn foreskins are extremely valuable for fibroblasts. The tissue reproduces better, has more vitality, and is generally guaranteed to be healthy.
SkinMedica is not the only company profiting from human foreskins. Since the 1980's many hospitals have been providing infant foreskins to a number of bio-research laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, and of course cosmetic companies. In Mothering Magazine in the Winter of 1997 issue Paul M. Fleiss, MD stated that "the marketing of purloined baby foreskins is a multimillion-dollar-a-year industry." With inflation and the growing number of cosmetic companies using foreskin fibroblasts that number is surely even higher today.
Published by Summer Minor
Summer Minor is a mother of 3 who practices Attachment Parenting and believes that with gentle guidance children can grow to be who they were meant to be. She blogs about parenting at http://mama2mamatips.com View profile
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21 Comments
Post a Commentso d top guyz hv bn making a lot of money from ur kids`s 4skins,dats why diz days dey hv employed some stupid guyz to go house 2 house telling people 2 go 4 d circumcision.re bata madi.
Follow the money is a very appropriate statement when it comes to cosmetic companies using the cells from baby boy foreskins cut off of newborns. Where are the ethics? You can't condone cutting off a perfectly healthy part of a babies anatomy in the name of vanity or science.....if a foreskin is so unnecessary that it is just cut off of a baby, then how can it then be prized by cosmetic and research companies? It's either valuable or it's not, and we all know the answer to that question. It's worth a ton of money to hospitals and these companies so why is it NOT valuable to the actual owner of the foreskin? We already know the answer to that question too. IT IS!!!!!!!!!
Disgusting. I hate Oprah. How unethical can you get? No wonder circumcisers are so desperate to legitimize male genital mutilation and keep it going--it's unbelievably profitable.
Kendra..."intact male genitals: priceless" -- very true. *high five* :-)
Average cost of infant circumcision: $300
Aftermarket value of amputated infant foreskin: $100,000
Intact Male Genitals: Priceless..
So, the tissue from my son may have been used to generate $100,000 worth of fibroblasts without my consent, and I'm busting my ass to be able to support him while the big corporations make millions? Another example of corruption in this country. This makes me sick.
Um ... holy $h!t !!! This is barbarism in the extreme!!!!!!! My fiance REMEMBERS his circumcision, (and it was on his day of birth) and he said that never since has he ever experienced such gut-wrenching pain and terror. He said that it's like needing to throw up in every cell of your being while screaming for help as your erect penis is sliced apart. That certainly sounds like torture to me!!! He still has painful erections and scars, and he's nearly 40. His penis never has been the full place of enjoyment and functionality that it should have and could have been. At least maybe someone who refuses to give oral sex has forskin in her lips if she's had collagen injections. Maybe his got used for this. When I told him about this article, he said, "Then can we call the people who use these creams dick faces, then?" LOL! And good point, the person who talked about circumcising clitoral hoods. I don't know why traumatized men and uneducated women get to still are even PERMITTED
this just goes to show there is always an agenda hiding behind stuff . we can now assume that there is no valid reason to circumcise at all its just a scam to make money.i aggree it unethical and have always said it should be outlawed till the boy is an adult and decides for himself about his own body.
I heard from a family member that it is alos used in blush, but I have been unable to find any info on this...only that it is used in "cosmetics" and a face cream!!! Anyone with extra info please passs it along. I will be changing my makeup habits for sure, looking good has a limit and this passes it!!!!
All this promotion to genitally mutilate young males; just shows how
propaganda delivered effeciently sure warps people's minds and ideas.
Dutch medical reseachers found in Jan 2007 (almost two years now)
that the HIV-virus is actually destroyed by the cells in the inner-foreskin which completely 'shoots down' defies all the rhetoric we have been hearing for years. The pro-mutilation antagonists using the excuse of male genital mutilation to protect males (and partners) from infection....
WRONG!! Funny how it shows that most of the world's media didn't use
this amazing discovery to rebut their wafflings.
I stand bewildered... how easily people are manipulated!!!!!!!!
-An Intactivist "a whole and happy man."
Circumcision is a human rights violation. There is no justifiable reason to cut off healthy parts of a baby boy's body. It's usually not even done with anesthetics, and if you do a respiratory response analysis of a baby boy during a circumcision his heart rate reaches 180 beats per minute and his cortisol levels rise to around 300 nanmoles per liter, which are levels you would expect from a torture victim. Not to mention, the amputation of the clitoral hood is homologous to amputating the foreskin, but women are protected under the law from such violations. Men need some equal rights here, this is a truly unjust double standard.