Tns

[biodork]

So I definitely learned something new on tv today. For those of you who use anti-wrinkle creams and don't already know what it is, maybe you shouldn't read on.

Ok there is this ingredient called TNS in one of the creams and do you all know what it is? It's the FORESKIN OF A CIRCUMCISED BABY!!! OMG! I had NO freakin clue!!!

I know the original use was a good one, to help burn victims heal but DAMN! That is one bit of info I probably could have done without. I'm so not using anti-wrinkle cream now (and I hope I never have bad burns). I mean I know that lotions have stuff from urine, but foreskins? That's a little too much for me...

[SunDevil]

It is strange the infant circumcision rate is so high in the US. But doctors, hospitals, cosmetics companies and biotech firms make a lot of money from this unnecessary surgery. I also wonder how much expectant mothers know about the surgery prior to making the decision in the hospital?

The reason it is in anti-wrinkle cream is because babies are loaded with human growth hormones. Burn victims use artificial skin and other drugs now.

[cornflakegirl]

It is strange the infant circumcision rate is so high in the US. But doctors, hospitals, cosmetics companies and biotech firms make a lot of money from this unnecessary surgery. I also wonder how much expectant mothers know about the surgery prior to making the decision in the hospital?


and it is extremely tramatic for the baby & very unnecessary.

my mom still blames my brother's delayed circumcision (he had jaundice so they waited 3 months) for his fear of doctors.

[Deadend]

I'm done because my father had somthing weird happen to him in his early 20's. The foreskin started to contract and squeeze him until he was in alot of pain. So he got circumsized when he was like 20. Appherently this makes it considerably *more* uncomfortable.


A weird condition I've never heard of since, but my parents decided not to take any chances in case it was genetic.

[mishl982]

::runs to check my under eye cream (does that even count as wrinkle cream?)::

Aww, no ingredients listed. I hope it's TNS free since I definitely just put some on while I checked. :green:

[Deadend]

In my biotech class we learned about growing artifical skin, or at least the research that's going into it.

The substrate it grows on has to be make out of what is pretty much pure jellied cows blood plasma or somthing. The skin cells need these hormones in order to know to stick together, and so a really complex substrate is needed. Anyways it's super expensive and takes massive ammounts of cow blood to manufacture.

[stonemonkey]

The foreskin started to contract and squeeze him until he was in alot of pain.

Damn, man! I've never heard of anything like that, that's freaky!

[Kitty]

That doesn't sound very legal. How do they get the foreskin?

I dunno about this...

[biodork]

They get the foreskins because people have their son's circumsized all the time. It's really a cosmetic thing. I don't think I'd want to have a son circumsized though, I think it's unnecessary.

[Kitty]

Yeah, but how do they get the legal rights to just take and use the foreskin??

If I did circumsize my son, I would not want the foreskin going into some old lady's cream.

[Rosalee]

Ok, so the parents may think they are "donating" to research. While there are some worthy causes, there are an awful lot of other uses for this material, and it looks as though a lot of people are making money out of this industry. The biomedical indistry is big business.

The phrase "vested interests" springs to mind. What are they going to do if parents decide to cut off the foreskin supply by allowing their children to stay intact?

http://www.organogenesis.com/products/testskin/physical.asp - used for testing cosmetics, very nice for animals, not so hot for little boys.

http://www.pharma.us.novartis.com/product/pi/pdf/apligraf.pdf


There are at least 3 types of cell cultures derived from foreskin. Keratinocytes, Melanocytes, and Fibroblasts.
There are 5590 hits for "melanocyte, foreskin" on google.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?biw=919&hl=en&q=melanocyte+foreskin&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.cambrex.com/Content/bioscience/CatNav.asp?oid=720&prodoid=NHEM&noCK=Y
At this website you can BUY foreskin-derived melanocytes.

http://www.cambrex.com/Content/Documents/TechLib/Melanocyte_poster_web.pdf
That same website's Melanocyte info sheet. A quote:
"NHEM [Melanocytes] are isolated neonatal foreskin tissue resulting from routine circumcision..."

http://cellapplications.com/HEM.htm
Another site's info on Melanocytes. Quote:
"Human Epidermal Melanocytes (HEM) are primary cells isolated from normal human neonatal foreskin."

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5589161.html
Page on Melanocyte preparation.

http://www.cascadebio.com/
More melanocyte foreskins for sale here.


ABOUT FIBROBLASTS.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fibroblast+foreskin&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
21,300 hits for fibroblast foreskin.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11858954&dopt=Abstract
"Fibroblast cultures derived from neonatal foreskin explants have been an important model for understanding the basic mechanisms of fibroblast function and activity. Neonatal foreskin has been routinely usedfor establishing such fibroblast cultures in vitro."

"We found that outgrowth and propagation of viable fibroblasts in vitro occurred with foreskin samples obtained within 24 days after surgical harvesting." HARVESTING???


FORESKIN KERATINOCYTES
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=foreskin+keratinocyte&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
11,500 google hits


Johns Hopkins results for search query "foreskin"
http://www.jhsph.edu:8765/query.htm...rldcongress.net

http://altweb.jhsph.edu/publications/journals/aatex/aatex01_3/aatex01_3a.htm
From Johns Hopkins site.
"This 3-dimensional Dermal Model, which consists of several layers of human, foreskin-derived, metabolically active fibroblasts grown to form a tissue equivalent on nylon mesh, was used as the substrate to test the toxicity of 12 chemicals"
"©Copyright 1997-2004 The Johns Hopkins Center For Alternatives To Animal Testing / altweb@jhsph.edu. All rights reserved."

http://altweb.jhsph.edu/publications/journals/iva/iva37_1/iva37_1g.htm
"We now examine further the functional activity of the HPA axis in the skin, by characterizing the actions of CRH on normal foreskin keratinocytes. "
©Copyright 1997-2004 The Johns Hopkins Center For Alternatives To Animal Testing / altweb@jhsph.edu. All rights reserved.


I hope this helps if anyone is calling cosmetic companies.
Watch for the words keratinocyte, melanocyte, fibroblast. If mentioned, ask from what the cells are derived.

There is a huge industry going on using neonatal foreskin, the web is littered with the sites of companies selling cells, doing research, manufacturing materials out of it.

Just think ladies, you may well be wearing their products on your faces - yes, they use it in cosmetics as well.

I would say that they have a massive vested interest in keeping this going, and will not lightly let it go. I have to admit, I did slightly wonder to myself if this is why there is suddenly such an interest in promoting RIC in Africa as a prophylactic against AIDS, a bit like the cigarette companies are trying to introduce smoking into third world countries, now they see people in developed countries wising up and their profits going down the pan.

Personally I think it's all rather creepy, it's a bit like harvesting children, and indeed one research paper above even calls it that.


-----------------------

For the John Hopkins center you need to go to the search site

http://altweb.jhsph.edu/

and put in "foreskin" which will bring up the summary of the research papers mentioned, and others.

--------------------

To find the products on the Cascade Biologics site, you can do a search for "foreskin" and the products will come up. Or you can follow the menus across from "products" on the menu bar. It's a bit awkward.

http://www.cascadebio.com/

I knew there was a lot of money involved but I had no idea that these cells were so expensive. What a learning curve.

6xT25 flasks of proliferating cells are $495 !!

I don't know if these links will work, I can't test them whilst I'm writing out the post, but you can get to the products from the home page as mentioned above.

http://www.cascadebio.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.Content&CID=429
(that's Keratinocytes)

http://www.cascadebio.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.Content&CID=496
(Melanocytes.)

http://www.cascadebio.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.Content&CID=437
(neonatal endothelial cells)

There are more types of cells for sale, but I'm sure you get the picture.

-----------------------------------

The full url of the Cambrex melanocytes:

http://www.cambrex.com/Content/bioscience/CatNav.asp?oid=720&prodoid=NHEM&noCK=Y



Their documentation:

http://www.cambrex.com/Content/Documents/TechLib/Melanocyte_poster_web.pdf


It is a very dangerous thing to have big profits dependent on the continuation of something like circumcision. Vested interests have a knack of perpetuating procedures which may not be in the bests interests of their subjects in the pursuit of maintaining profits. If routine circumcision were to stop, where do they get their money from? It has been seen time and time again where corporate business has acted against the interests of consumers in order to make a fast buck. This will be looked at no differently, those foreskins are just a raw material to them, nothing more, nothing less, and they have to maintain the supply to keep going.



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[heatherf]

Circumcision topic again? Dead Horse. IMO make a whole 'nother thread about it cause it gets :evil: heated :evil: baby!

[capella]

let's just say a certain someone I know very well is not circumcised and neither will any of our male offspring ;) :cool:

[tdko]

and it is extremely tramatic for the baby & very unnecessary.

my mom still blames my brother's delayed circumcision (he had jaundice so they waited 3 months) for his fear of doctors.
I really hope you're not serious. There is no way that a week-old baby is going to be traumatized from circumcision. Long term memory isn't even fully up and running at that point.

My understanding is that non-Jews in modern times have circumcised their boys thinking that there were health benefits to it. Who would do that to their kid for cosmetic reasons, given American's intense shame over genitalia?

[wordsmith]

I think more parents choose circumcision because of the theory that it is more sanitary than for aesthetic reasons.

[heatherf]

I'm telling you guys- START A NEW THREAD. I mean, it can go here and all...but it's gonna get heated.

We've gone through this shit before kids.....

[heatherf]

And evertime I see the title "tns" for some reason I just think of "tho". I freaking LOVE the term titty hard on.

[heatherf]

And I SOOOOO badly want to join in on the to cut or not debate...I'm holding my tongue....thank God it's Friday, I get to leave soon, and I won't be on this weekend to pull my hairs out over this!

[wordsmith]

I hear you, but why does it matter whether or not a new thread is started?

[heatherf]

I hear you, but why does it matter whether or not a new thread is started?

Doesn't really, like I said......I just thought it would be easier to look at the title of the thread for the topic. tns? No idea what that was. This shit gets nuts though, people are way passionate about this.

[heatherf]

It would be cool if we could have some little icon on the title of a thread that could mean a thread was controversial or something. Random, I know.

[wordsmith]

Yeah, I recall. I have no opinion one way or another, though.

[heatherf]

Yeah, I recall. I have no opinion one way or another, though.

Good for you WS, it must be nice. Probably comes a lot with the territory of being pregnant now, cause I wish I didn't take this shit so personally. I try to let it slide.

[wordsmith]

Yeah, I can understand why parents both would and would not wanna go this route. I'm sure I'll develop a particular stance when I start having kids.

[cornflakegirl]

I really hope you're not serious. There is no way that a week-old baby is going to be traumatized from circumcision. Long term memory isn't even fully up and running at that point.



yes, i think it does affect a child. i think every experience affects a person, no matter how young her or she is. baby feel painful stimulus, responds to painful stimulus, somewhere that is stored.

i am not gonna get in a huge discussion about this because, exactly as heather said, it can be an extremely heated topic. i think that goes for double when you bring religious tradition into the mix.

[AtomicBoyJim]

We had this discussion in my class when I took developmental psychology last year. The teacher said the biggest determining factor for whether or not to circumcise the child should be whether the father is circumcised. Apparently it's widely accepted in the psychological community that if a little boy's "anatomy" doesn't match his father's, there stands a strong chance of him developing inadequacy issues later on in life. It made sense to me and she freely admitted having had anxiety about it herself when her son was born so I don't doubt her sincerity. I've never known anyone else who's had any problems from circumcision and I've never had any either so I don't see any problem with it. On the bonus side, there's a little less cleaning involved when there's no foreskin for things to get trapped under and I don't doubt that it reduces std transmission rates as well.