Need your Mary Kay links and sources - Page 2

[Frankly Speaking]

Originally Posted by SharonAnne

Please don't flame me, as I'm kinda new to the foreskin controversy. But....

If the foreskin has already been amputated (ICK), what's the harm in testing on it? This is an honest question, not trying to start a debate or anything. I really want an answer.

Thanks!

Let me turn the tables a little to something identical but slightly different. Your misunderstanding of the issue is common but this is an example I think you can understand.

The genital tissue of baby girls (the labia, clitoris and clotoral hood) could be used exactly the same way and would produce exactly the same material and results. Imagine if these companies were paying $50.00 for the genital "carvings" of little African girls. In actual practice, there would be no difference but our perception would be far different. Americans would be outraged and I can imagine the government would ban the importation of those products into the country as a moral and ethical message to those countries who mutilate the female genitals.

However, since males are regarded totally different in this country even though the damage and ethics are exactly identical, we (some Americans) over look this violation of males bodies and rights.

It's not an issue of whether the mutilation of the male or female genitals has already happened or not, it's that it happens at all. The fact that there is a cash bounty on the male genital parts is the unethical and shameful part. Any one offering a cash bounty on female genital parts in this country would be quickly imprisoned and most likely without bail bond being offered. That would be partly for their own protection because their life would be in danger. However, someone doing the exact same thing except for male genital parts will be interviewed on television, will recieve awards for their work and public recognition. That is sexism at it's purest but because of our conditioning, we not only don't usually recognize it, we even encourage it.

In reality, we could stirp the skin from baby cadavers to use to produce that product and it would be far more humane as there would be no pain or loss to a living, breathing human being. However, we can clearly see that that would be unethical and immoral even if the baby's organs had been donated and the skin system is the body's largest organ. Even at that, you have to give authorization for the organs to be used in this manner and the organs can not be sold. Human infant foreskins are not treated in this same way. They are taken, not given and they are sold for cash but the child or the parents get none of the money. If you donate a dead baby's body, you specify if it is going for organ donation or for medical research. It would be a rare bereaved parent who would donate their child's organs to a cosmetic company for testing cosmetics but this is exactly what is happening in this case and it is done without their knowledge or approval and the harvester is being paid for the "donation" from a live child. As mentioned above, the foreskin is useless if it has been contaminated with anesthetics so these babies suffer tremendous and extreme pain for their "donation" to the cosmetics industry.

Does that shed any light on the issue for you?




Frank

[grisandole]

Originally Posted by Frankly Speaking

Think of it as making chicken stock where you boil the bones, cartlage and skin and the result is a gelatinous mass that can be stored and re-used later. The end product will have the "essence" of chicken but not all of the product that is not needed or commonly used.

Infant skin is pure and uncontaminated and the DNA is intact. By "cooking it down" they get a pure product that is not contaminated which could affect test results. As mentioned in the research project, new cells will replicate themselves 50 to 90 times. The other 98%-99.9% of the material is where the original cells have reproduced. It is human foreskin structure but not the original foreskin. Using old cells would result in far fewer replications. This pure product has all of the characteristics (essence) of skin. It is spread on a medium with nutrients where it replicates or "grows" into the laboratory equivalent of human skin. Probably the end result is 1/30th or 1/50th actual human cellular structure that was taken from the actual foreskin. The remaining actual foreskins that provided the material is discarded.

If a company that uses these foreskin products were asked if their laboratories use testing materials that contain components of infant foreskins, the truthful answer is "yes." If you ask if they test on foreskins, the truthful although deceitful answer would be "no" because they are not testing on the actual foreskin but instead, components of actual foreskins. It's a matter of semantics.

From an ethical and human rights standpoint, there is really no difference. The begining point is that a man loses a significant part of his sexuality and his civil and human rights are severely violated.




Frank

Thank you for explaining! I wonder how to really find out if companies do this. From the evidence, it appears that MK, Estee Lauder, etc. do; but how about other companies? Will they answer truthfully? Probably not

Kristi

[Frankly Speaking]

I suspect every company that you would contact knows the controversy and would attempt a duck and weave or outright deny it if confronted by an individual. Now, if you were an investigator for 20/20 or 60 Minutes and identified yourself as such, you would be put in touch with their public relations department and would be given a carefully crafted statement that while they tried to put the best face on it, would admit it. At that point, they would know they had been caught and were about to be "outted" and would shift into damage control mode.

However, as we have seen, there is some pretty damning evidence from reliable sources that certain companies have participated in this. I would assess the reliability of the sources in making a decision about whether or not to buy a particular company's products.



Frank

[karlatrx]

Originally Posted by grisandole

Thank you for explaining! I wonder how to really find out if companies do this. From the evidence, it appears that MK, Estee Lauder, etc. do; but how about other companies? Will they answer truthfully? Probably not

Kristi

I was thinking that maybe asking if the company uses a skinlike product (there must be a technical term for it, manufactured skin?) for it's testing. If so, what is the name brand and manufacturer? You could then do some research and find out how that fake skin is produced. You wouldn't be giving them the chance to confirm or deny foreskin use.

We learned that Testskin produced by Organogenisis is made with foreskins.

[IfMamaAintHappy]

Mary Kay corporate is mailing me hard copies of information they have. With any luck, words like fibroblasts will show up in the information I will receive. If I think the information will help anyone make an informed decision from this thread, I'd be happy to mail it to you.

Once again, it was stated to me that Mary Kay uses no human byproducts in testing or manufacturing of their skincare and cosmetics. But I dont guess anyone cares to hear that now, so until I have the hard copies of the research and development information, I will keep quiet.

Keep posting what you find.

[Frankly Speaking]

Jeni:

From the links above, it is apparent that The Mary Kay Ashe Foundation has bankrolled this research. To me, it doesn't matter if it is The Mary Kay Corporation or The Mary Kay Ashe Foundation, it's basically all the same. The sites I have seen (and copied to disk, just in case) all appear to be recipients of grants from either the corporation or the foundation to investigate the use of human foreskin materials in cosmetic testing and the information there appeared to be recognition of the support of either the foundation or the corporation. It appears that the recognition was given innocently in gratitude and not in malice so these organizations would have no reason to lie to implicate Mary Kay. I would have to see some extremely convincing information to the contrary not to believe what I have seen with my own eyes from what appears to be unimpeachably reliable sources.




Frank

[A&A]

Originally Posted by candiland

It makes circumcision a profitable business. Also, in order for the foreskin to be tested on, it needs to contain no anesthetic. Which means a baby was sliced, ripped, and torn at for 10 minutes without pain relief.

Right?

Right. It makes circ a conflict of interest.......if hospitals and docs are making money (not only from charging parents and insurance companies, but selling foreskins to biomed companies), then it makes it THAT MUCH HARDER for them to refuse to circ.

[hummingbear]

seeking information or seeking justification?

Originally Posted by ging-ging

Mary Kay corporate is mailing me hard copies of information they have. With any luck, words like fibroblasts will show up in the information I will receive. If I think the information will help anyone make an informed decision from this thread, I'd be happy to mail it to you.

Once again, it was stated to me that Mary Kay uses no human byproducts in testing or manufacturing of their skincare and cosmetics. But I dont guess anyone cares to hear that now, so until I have the hard copies of the research and development information, I will keep quiet.

Keep posting what you find.

I am confused by your posts.......With all due respect ...... Your first post benevolently asks for help researching whether or not MK has any associations with technology using foreskin. Your second post is quite defensive and is posted only 4 hours after you first pose your plea for assistance. (Not really enough time for anyone to read your first post, do some research and then respond to such an issue?) And your third post shows no indication that you actually looked into the information that others dug up. It seems that you are going to rely solely on what MK has to say about themselves. This seems a rather naive approach with something so controversial.

I do hope that you post what MK has to say about their own practices.

[A&A]

Originally Posted by CarrieBeary77

She pointed out to me that the foreskins would be cut ANYWAY. Those parents don't give a rip about their sons genital integrity and so they would be cut ANYWAY. The foreskins would end up in the trash ANYWAY. So the cosmetics companies buy them up and test on them. So what? It's extremely unfortunate that these babies are being mutilated, but the cosmetics companies aren't asking parents to go out and cut their sons for their research and testing. The parents are cutting because they don't care and the companies are using a product that is otherwise unwanted - at least by the powers that be.

If you'd kindly actually read the entire thread, we have discussed this issue.

[A&A]

Originally Posted by CarrieBeary77

I have, thank you.

Then please re-read what Frankly Speaking wrote. He said it most eloquently. (post #22 on this thread.)

[A&A]

Originally Posted by CarrieBeary77

So the cosmetics companies buy them up and test on them. So what?

So, am I to understand that you don't actually care whether or not MK tests on foreskins? :

[karlatrx]

FURTHER posts have shown otherwise, however. Jeni and I are continuing our research.

I want to clarify what you're saying. Are you saying: "Further posts have shown that MK does (or did) use foreskins in testing"?

So the cosmetics companies buy them up and test on them. So what?

There's been several posts addressing that question.

The parents are cutting because they don't care and the companies are using a product that is otherwise unwanted - at least by the powers that be.

I really don't believe that most parents that have their child circumcised "don't care". They are doing what they are led to believe is best by people in the medical industry, the people who are making money from selling the byproduct of the elective surgery that they either agreed was a good idea or didn't try to dissuade the parents from! We've seen how the pharmaceutical companies have influence over immoral doctors. The pharm companies make big money and are not going to want Dr's to stop providing them with this valuable commodity.

You're also forgetting the no anesthetic part. Do you really think Dr's are explaining to parents the studies showing long and short term effects on infants, or explaining just how painful the procedure is...so painful that infants go into shock or choke on their own vomit? And that the parents then reply that Jr needs to toughen up, go ahead and cut him with no anesthesia? Or are they saying babies don't have pain receptors yet, they sleep right through it, they'll never remember the pain. And the parents trust the doctors because a doctor wouldn't hurt their poor innocent baby. Doctors are misleading people and they get to reap the reward in their pocket books.

Our business is being trashed

Being defensive is a totally normal human reaction when we feel we're being attacked. I'm sorry it feels that way.



edited to remove sarcasm

[Sarah]

re: the inevidability of the cutting... so why not make good use of the "by product"...

because it CREATES a market
it creates a conflict of interest
it creates a profit motive that might harm boys (for example- they may be denied anesthetic or might be cut more agressivly to increase the crop yield)... we don't know and we are NOT getting any answers on this from the people who are running this market.
Who profits?... and is this ethical?

Try this... would it be ethical if this test product was made out of the genital flesh of girls who were going to be circumcised "anyway"?

Or would it be "cruelty free" if we "only" experimented on rabbits who were going to be slaughtered "anyway" I mean... people do eat rabbits. They are going to die- why not get some important info first? (spare me the animal testing story- I know why animal testing is crap- this is just an example)

Imagine it was YOUR genital flesh that was being poured out in a visceral soup over the mesh in those petri dishes... would you take solace in the fact that a million dollar biotech firm had slipped someone a greased palm before your genital flesh hit the landfill? Managed to turn your own personal tragedy and violation into a little bit of corporate profit? It's not philanthropy... it's rape. It does not need a mesh structure of millionaire investors in the highest positions to ensure the stability of the "culture".

I met a nurse who worked at one of these hospitals which sells foreskins. She was FURIOUS about it. She knew there was a conflict of interest and she felt that parents were being intentionally denied information they needed because someone had a deal to sell foreskins... as many as possible.

Love Sarah

[Quirky]

Originally Posted by Sarah

bellydancer- It's bovine collagen- not bovine foreskin... as far as I know- Bovines don't have a foreskin.

Somewhat T, but of course bulls have foreskins. All mammals have foreskins. Have you ever seen a bull (or a dog, or a horse) with an erection, where the glans comes out of the sheath? Foreskin/glans. Same thing.

That's why circ makes no sense evolutionarily speaking. All mammals evolved a foreskin for a reason, and it's stupid to cut it off.

[grisandole]

I don't agree with the "they are already cut off so why not use them" arguement at all, for the reasons stated. No one should make a profit from circumcision.

I will not buy from a company that profits or uses foreskins in their testing, or funds such testings. I'm eliminating not only MK, but other companies.

I think MK has been spoken about more on this board because there are many mamas here that love the products, so it concerns us more.........it keeps getting brought up because mamas use it and want to know the truth.


Kristi

[Frankly Speaking]

Originally Posted by CarrieBeary77

Jeni is researching on behalf of herself and me. I'm also a MK consultant. Her 2nd post shows how irritated and upset we are that people continue to perpetuate a rumor with no factual basis up to that point.

What you don't realize is that this issue has been discussed here in great detail in months and years past in many different threads and on other discussion boards as well. To us it is not rumor. We have seen the facts and evidence. Now, I did not remember the details or the companies involved. That doesn't mean that others didn't. I suspect that all of the initial posts were done from memory and when we were challenged, we were quickly able to provide the evidence that we had seen in the previous discussions. You are falsely accusing us here.

Her 2nd posts illustrates our upset at feeling picked apart. Our business is being trashed and up to that point (her 2nd post) there had been no substantial PROOF that MK admitted to testing on foreskins or adding it to product.

But it is not your business that is being picked apart. It's Mary Kay's business practices. You are taking on guilt that you don't deserve unless you do nothing about it. However, you do appear to be ready and quite willing to condone and approve of this business practice simply to protect your own pocket book. I certainly hope that is not the case.

I tlkaed it over w/ my sil, also against circ. She pointed out to me that the foreskins would be cut ANYWAY. Those parents don't give a rip about their sons genital integrity and so they would be cut ANYWAY. The foreskins would end up in the trash ANYWAY. So the cosmetics companies buy them up and test on them. So what? It's extremely unfortunate that these babies are being mutilated, but the cosmetics companies aren't asking parents to go out and cut their sons for their research and testing. The parents are cutting because they don't care and the companies are using a product that is otherwise unwanted - at least by the powers that be.

Read Sarah's post above. These cosmetic companies and the pharma companies are wealthy beyond belief and they have deep pockets and advertising budgets. If they teamed together to sponsor a dis-information campaign on radio, television and news print, they could easily disperse sufficient quantities of wrongful information to put the intactness movement back to the begining of the 20th century. It wouldn't surprise me if they were able to get the 1996 Female Genital Mutilation Law repealed if they found a profit to be made. Remember, cutting little girls parts off was quite common in the early part of the 20th century adn little girl parts could be used exactly the same way boy parts are used now. Would you be able to justify cutting the genitals of little girls for cosmetic companies with the justification that they are already being cut off and thrown away? These companies have the profit motive and means to perpetuate circumcision into the next century. The arguments you are using will be the same ones they would use to justify their theft of men's sexuality and the violation of their body integrity and human and civil rights.

Imagine that there were a new use found for newborn genital tissue that put them in short supply. The first move would be to increase the bounty paid to doctors for the existing supply in an effort to increase the supply. Then there would be pressure put on doctors to provide more foreskins and when that supply ran short, there would be advertisements on television about the wonderful benefits of circumcsion and the horrible dangers of leaving them unmolested. If the supply then ran short, these financial interests would begin to lobby for the repeal of the 1996 FGM law and an advertising campaign about the benefits of female circumcision, what a terrible mistake it was to abandon the practice in the early 20th century and how female circumcison will leave the child cleaner, more attractive, more desirable and better able to fit in with her peers. There would be claims that female circumcision would prevent numerous infections that have plagued women for centuries and eventually after a couple of generations that daughters should look like their mothers to avoid the terrible psychological rammifications of haviing different genitals



Frank

[boingo82]

Originally Posted by CarrieBeary77

J..I tlkaed it over w/ my sil, also against circ. She pointed out to me that the foreskins would be cut ANYWAY. Those parents don't give a rip about their sons genital integrity and so they would be cut ANYWAY. The foreskins would end up in the trash ANYWAY.

Well that is kind of like saying "So what if we buy ivory, the poachers were going to kill the elephants ANYWAY." Or "So what if I have a 3 carat ring, they were going to force slaves to mine for diamonds ANYWAY."

So the cosmetics companies buy them up and test on them. So what? It's extremely unfortunate that these babies are being mutilated, but the cosmetics companies aren't asking parents to go out and cut their sons for their research and testing.

Oh, AREN'T THEY? MY PED ASKED US 6 TIMES TO CIRC.
He asked 6 TIMES.
I am a first time mother! If I did not know better, I would think it HAD to be done! If my parents had not stopped this cycle, had not left my brothers intact, I COULD HAVE CAVED! I could have BEEN one of the mothers posting in the regrets thread!
You don't think that peds and OBs and hospitals are influenced by the money? You don't think they pressure for cosmetic surgery on babies knowing the $$$$ it brings in? You don't think that parents are influenced by the OB who excitedly says "You're having a BOY, right? Everyone's having boys tonight!! That means a lotta circs tomorrow!!!!" while the 1st time mother is in transition??? You don't think the parents are influenced by the ped who says "When did you want the circ?" "OK...just making sure my chart is correct..NO circ?" "OK...you didn't want to circ. Are you sure?" meanwhile DH and I saying no, NO, NO! and nobody freaking listens to us.

The babies are getting cut anyway, HUH? No parents ever got scared into cutting by a ped who warned about the cleaning difficulty, or the high number of boys who "have" to be cut later after he FORCIBLY RETRACTS THEM?

The parents are cutting because they don't care and the companies are using a product that is otherwise unwanted - at least by the powers that be.

The PARENTS are cutting because they have been misled by the medical community and the MEDIA (Whom OF COURSE is never influenced by the millions of dollars flowing through the pharmeceutical and cosmetic industries ) into believing that circ is GOOD. The parents are often as innocent as the baby they hand over to be cut! Have you READ the regret thread? IT's stickied at the top of the board! These mommas didn't "not care"!


And I would like to point out that the use of the foreskins is the thing that got my DH's attention the most. This is a man who is not an organ donor because the idea of other people mucking in his body creeps him out. HOW DO YOU THINK HE FEELS ABOUT PART OF HIS SEX ORGAN BEING RUBBED ON SOME OLD HAG'S FACE?!?!

[grisandole]

My circed dh was disgusted when I told him about the testing on foreskin, and how the foreskin is used in that one skin cream (the one Oprah did a show on). It's wrong and creepy on so many levels. And the fact that they claim the products are cruelty free is horrible


Kristi

[Acksiom]

Originally Posted by SharonAnne

Please don't flame me, as I'm kinda new to the foreskin controversy.

No problem. The disturbing example below is not meant as a flame. It's an attempt at an enlightening what-if.

Originally Posted by SharonAnne

If the foreskin has already been amputated (ICK), what's the harm in testing on it?

Because the foreskin is -- or would be, if the laws were applied equally instead of prejudicially and discriminatorily -- the illegal proceeds of a criminal act, not to mention a fundamental human rights violation.

The harm is that the foreskin has already been wrongfully amputated, which stains everything done with it afterwards.

For example, imagine that we could create a 'useful' medical/cosmetic testing material by terrifying infants, causing their blood generation chemistry to change in a particular subtle way, after which we could then extract, in an excruciatingly painful process, the necessary ingredients for the material from the marrow of one of their long bones. And the limb used would of course be somewhat damaged in several ways by this, for life.

And then imagine that it only works where the blood chemistry of little girls is concerned.

The harm would be that such a thing is done in the first place. And all the things that proceed from that doing are stained by that harm.

If cosmetic companies were using long-bone marrow extracted in an excruciatingly painful process from deliberately terrified baby girls, which damaged the functionality of their limbs for life, for testing purposes, what would the point be to the intellectual separation of that testing from the acquisition process itself?

As far as I can tell, the only reason would be to attempt to evade the responsibility for the harm done that inherently accompanies the proceeds of that harm.

Creating products in a process that includes criminal acts and human rights violations is to become complicit in those criminal acts and human rights violations -- to become an accessory to the crime. And when we pay someone for a product that is partially the result of criminal acts and human rights violations, we too become accountable to those violated, and we too take on a share of the responsibility for their violation, because we too have become accessories.

So that's why the testing is 'harmful'. There's a legal term called 'fruits of a poisonous tree' which (IIRC) refers to prosecutorial evidence which cannot be used because it was acquired illegally, and thus its use would cause a mistrial or forced verdict of innocence, if the conditions of its acquisition were discovered.

That's similar to this situation. The cosmetics testing involved here is like that -- 'fruits of a poisonous tree'. It's fundamentally wrong to permanently remove healthy, functional, nonpathological tissue from nonconsenting innocents, and any trade in that tissue afterwards inherently partakes of the responsibility for the original harm done to the victims.

The attempt to intellectually separate the original harm from the testing itself is fundamentally just an attempt to evade that share of the responsibility for the criminal acts and the human rights violation involved which accompanies the proceeds of that harm.

The harm to the testing is the inherent complicity in criminal acts and human rights violations involved that necessarily accompany the use of tissue itself, because of the nature of how it was obtained.

If we haven't satisfactorily answered your questions, please let us know where and how, and we'll gladly keep trying to explain.

[boingo82]

Originally Posted by CarrieBeary77

..
All of those people are involved in torture and rape of little boys. It happens ANYWAY. So the cosmetics companies benefit from the result. I don't agree with it. But I also understand that businesses do take advantage of opportunities. It's all part of business.

So I see both sides.

Well nobody is saying that the cosmetics corps are 100% responsible for the mutilation of these innocent babies.

But they ARE contributing to the demand for foreskin. They ARE offering money to hospitals who perform nonconsentual cosmetic surgery on infant genitalia.

They ARE in the business of recieving stolen goods!

They may not be the ones standing there holding a knife to the babies! But they are a link in the chain! It does not happen ANYWAY! They are part of the cycle, part of the demand. A lot of parents are being tricked into circumcision by their doctors and the media...the media who has released that same stupid african aids study every 6 months for the last 5 years...but the media never has any connections to cosmetic companies....Oh no, it's not like the media is ever controlled by its sponsors at all.