Abort Pepsi! Abort! - why Pepsi being singled out?

Abort Pepsi! Abort!
By wadingacross

If the claim is true and Pepsi and its contracting company refuse to change methods/usage, they may both find themselves in a financial quandary.

What am I talking about? Apparently it has come to light that a company which PepsiCo uses to provide flavors for their products uses human cells in the production of said flavors.

Aborted human cells.

Let me make it clear that the claim made against the company, Senomyx, acknowledges that no human cells are in their final products or in Pepsi Co’s products.

This however does not negate the moral and ethical problem that is harvesting and using aborted human tissue for scientific/medical/corporate use.

It is already documented that fetal cells have been used for decades to make certain vaccines, and that creates a moral heartache and dilemma for parents who want their children well and properly vaccinated. However, this is a consumer product based purely in choice, more so than that, it’s a frill item. Soda and such manufactured food items are not necessary for healthy living or sustinence.

That said, boycotts don’t always work very well. It is a rare boycott which truly works and is effective in fulfilling its goals. At the very least though, when well advertised and announced, boycotts can raise awareness and perhaps still affect changes.

As an aside, let it be known that Pepsi Co plays second fiddle to Coca Cola on the world stage when it comes to their primary soda products. Currently the first and second most popular soda drinks sold in the world are Coca Cola and Diet Coke. Pepsi comes in third. In the corporate battle for dominance, can PepsiCo afford to slip even lower, all in the name of continuing to use a company which uses unethical business/production practices? Furthermore, Pepsi Co doesn’t just make soda and other drinks. They are the worlds largest producer of packaged foods. In other words, potentially, there is a lot at stake here, especially if boycotters decide to boycott all Pepsi Co products, not just Pepsi soda products.

Just what does Pepsi Co own you ask? Well, you can visit their site which has a scrolling bar of logos of every product they make. Here is a list of some products however:

- Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Propel, 7 Up, Sierra Mist, Aquafina, Amp, , Gatorade, Tropicana, Naked Drinks
- Frito Lay, Cheetos, Ruffles, Tostitos, Sun Chips, Doritos
- Quaker, Lipton, Rice a Roni, Aunt Jemima, Cap’n Crunch, Life
Considering that most of us probably buy any one or more of these products or derivation on a fairly regular basis, it’s easy to see how a boycott can affect one’s choices as well as a company. In this day and age of mega-companies that border on monopolies, so diversified that they have their hands in almost “everything”, when we chose to stop associating with a company or product, we are often not even aware that we’re still giving our money to them, and thus, unknowingly supporting them. Realize that around 40% of all snack foods sold in the US were produced by Pepsi Co.

Let me quickly note however that Pepsi Co no longer owns any fast food chains as it once did such as KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. That said, these companies might still sell Pepsi products, though I believe it’s often left to the franchise owner’s discretion.

Do your own homework and think and pray about it. Even if you decide to boycott Pepsi Co and they’re unaffected, remember that changing a corporate policy or bankrupting them isn’t the real goal for us – though it is an important agenda. The real goal for us, especially for we who consider ourselves Christians standing upon principles and faith is that we remain morally consistent. Let us continually educate ourselves and not merely be sheep. Let us use the knowledge we gain to affect our daily lives. Let us sanctify all life and answer to God for the choices we make – even the mundane ones… even the ones that will not bring back the life of a human murdered years ago.

Walk the talk, realizing however that even in our walks we still can stumble though we’re trying to stay on the straight and narrow. Just make sure that you’re not putting pragmatism before principle; your stomach before your heart.

– Updated to add that we/you might consider boycotting any/all of Senomyx’s contracting companies. A brief perusal of their home page shows that they’re contracting with Cadbury Adams of Kraft Foods.

Cadbury Adams makes various candies, gum, mints and cough drops.

Black Jack chewing gum
Bubblicious bubble gum
Chiclets
Clorets
Dentyne
Freshen Up Gum
Stride
Trident
Certs – mints
Halls – cough drops
Swedish Fish
Sour Patch Kids
Nestle’ SA is another “collaborator”. Nestle’ is the worlds largest food and “nutrition” company in the world.

Let that sink in, what that means. When you set your heart to a boycott, just how far are you going to go? If Senomyx is using fetal cells to test products for Pepsi Co, even if they’re not using them with products for other companies, the issue is still that Senomyx is doing it – and other companies are doing business with them.

I had not noted it before, but apparently letters were sent to Campbell’s Soup by the organization, Children of God For Life, which is calling for the boycott of Pepsi. Both companies had been doing business with Senomyx but Campbell’s dropped the flavor maker when they were made aware of their business practices. Other Senomyx collaborators were sent letters but their responses often went along the same line as Pepsi Co.

Why is Children Of God For Life then just singling out Pepsi? According to Senomyx’s website as of June 4th, 2011, Nestle’ is still a contracting company. Nestle’ is a far greater food producer than Pepsi Co. If Senomyx is using fetal cells to tests products, it’s irrelevant whether or not those fetal cells are used on products sold/used by Nestle’. The issue is with Senomyx, period, and thus by extention Pepsi Co because of their collaboration. Pepsi is being singled out because Senomyx is making a product which Pepsi wants to use to create a new drink, which all goes back to the usage of aborted fetal cells.

If CoGfL wants to be consistent, they need to be just as vocal and adamant about boycotting every company which does business with Senomyx.

The problem arises however, that if we boycott Pepsi Co because of Senomyx then we should similarly boycott Nestle and Cadbury out of consistency. Only, considering that much of our goods which we eat are manufactured by these companies, our options become limited. One might say that you’d buy organic, fresh or store-brand/no frills. While this is true, it is my understanding that many name brand companies produce goods which are relabeled with a store name/no-frills name. An example of this in a completely different product vein is Foxconn, an electronics company that is global and manufactures a lot of computer components which get slapped with different brand names. And, Foxconn apparently has a legitimate bad reputation concerning human rights, yet much of the world is oblivious to this as we buy our laptops.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Where do we draw the line? I’m not saying we must put pragmatism before principles, but in this world where so many companies that provide products we consume operate unethically, what does a moral person do? For that matter, consider the US government which is/was funding Planned Parenthood. US tax dollars therefore go to fund abortions. How do we interact with our federal government? Do we boycott our government?

By the by, that cell line, called HEK 293 has been used for decades in the pharmecutical industry – vaccines – and elsewhere. Begin to scratch the surface and your worldview changes, not only that, your understanding of what we use and are sold, by choice or force. It wracks the soul to be sure to weigh our morals and principles when we often don’t have choices or weren’t aware of particular issues.

In a nutshell, making a point to Pepsi or Senomyx or any of their contracting companies isn’t going to be so easy as not buying a couple of their products so that we can feel good about standing on our principles.

Read this CBS article pasted/posted at CoGfL which details the whole issue.


http://wadingacross.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/abort-pepsi-abort/
Tweet