Company Basing Wrinkle Cream on Cells From Abortion Reportedly Misleads Critics

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 3, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Company Basing Wrinkle Cream on Cells From Abortion Reportedly Misleads Critics

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 3
, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The company that makes a cream to combat wrinkles that was created using cells from the tissue of at least one baby killed in an abortion is facing accusations of misleading critics upset about it. Neocutis, a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on dermatology and skin care, has come under fire.

The pro-life group Children of God for Life, whose mission is to monitor the use of tissue from babies victimized by abortions in products like the Neocutis wrinkle cream, exposed the company last week.

Neocutis’ key ingredient known as “Processed Skin Proteins” was developed at the University of Luasanne from the skin tissue of an unborn baby who was killed in an abortion at 14 weeks gestation.

Subsequently, a working cell bank was established, containing several billion cultured skin cells to produce the human growth factor needed to restore aging skin.

Debi Vinnedge, the head of the pro-life organization, tells LifeNews.com today she is dismayed by Neocutis’ response to the criticism. She says thousands of angry consumers have begun taking action by contacting the company and saying they will no longer purchase its products.

In response to those calls and emails, Vinnedge says people are "receiving jaded, if not patently false responses from the company President, Mark Lemcko."

“Neocutis is not being honest with the public about the abortions involved in their skin cream products,” she said.

She said Neocutis responded to one inquiry by saying their products have involved just one abortion over the years even though the company’s web site states: "The Laboratoire de Médecine Foetale at the Medical School of the University Hospital of Lausanne has worked extensively with fetal cells since 1995 and resulted in several patent applications.”

Neocutis was formed in 2002 as spin-off of the University Medical School and began working to protect “the intellectual property of their proprietary technology.”

"Yet the abortion used to provide the fetal material for their products was done in 2004," Vinnedge says.

The pro-life advocate also says Neocutis has told consumers that the 2004 abortion was done because the “pregnancy could not come to term” and that “the mother’s life was in danger.”

However, a report on the abortion in a 2009 issue of Experimental Gerontology makes no mention of this at all, she says.

"Considering that they dedicated an entire section to the ‘Ethical Aspects of working with human fetal cells’ in which they attempted to sanitize what they were doing, if the abortion was somehow medically needed, it would have been documented as such," Vinnedge said.

She also pointed out that Lemcko wrote an email to another consumer that he “felt comfortable with his decision” to base the cream on cells from an aborted baby after studying the 2005 statement by the Pontifical Academy for Life, Moral Reflection on Vaccines Prepared From Cells Derived from Aborted Human Foetuses.

“It is unconscionable that Mr. Lemcko would use the Vatican statement to defend his actions”, Vinnedge stated. “We are talking apples and oranges here – health vs. pure vanity.”

Both the Pontifical Academy for Life and Pope Benedict XVI’s December 2008 encyclical, Dignitas Personae, cautiously noted that parents could use the vaccines in question “on a temporary basis” and in situations of “grave inconvenience” or “considerable danger” to the health of their children and society.

“What do you suppose the Vatican would say about using these cosmetic creams?" Vinnedge asked.

ACTION: Contact Neocutis at Neocutis Inc., 3053 Fillmore Street # 140, San Francisco CA 94123 and call 866-636-2884 or see https://www.neocutis.com

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