No, food products don’t contain fetal tissue
CLAIM: Flavor enhancers made from aborted fetal tissue are being added to food products without consumers’ knowledge.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Biotechnology companies have frequently used fetal cell lines in their research and testing, but flavor enhancers used in food products do not contain any tissue from aborted fetuses. The Food and Drug Administration said in a statement that it would not approve any food containing fetal tissue for human consumption and is not aware of this ever happening.
THE FACTS: A years-old misconception about the use of fetal cell lines in research has resurfaced online in recent months with the false claim that food manufacturers give customers products made from fetal tissue.
“Flavour enhancers made from aborted fetal tissue are being eaten without the knowledge of consumers,” read one tweet shared thousands of times. “Amounts of these flavour enhancers used in food products are below a certain threshold, so they don’t need to be reported or safety-tested by the FDA.”
The claim, which also circulated on Instagram with the misleading caption “aborted babies in your food,” was further amplified when a Texas state senator this month introduced a bill calling for the labeling of foods containing “aborted human fetal tissue.”
But there is no basis for such claims, according to the FDA, which said in an emailed statement that it would not condone this and was “not aware of any company ever putting fetal cells into food products.”
“There are no conditions under which the FDA would consider human fetal tissue to be safe or legal for human or animal consumption,” the statement read. The agency added that because it is not aware of any example of this ever happening, it has never taken enforcement action for this violation.
The false claim originates from the fact that many biotechnology companies, including some in the food industry, have used fetal cell lines in a research and testing capacity. Cell lines, which are key to medical research, are cloned copies of cells from the same source that have been adapted to grow continuously in labs. They are very commonly used in pharmaceutical research and vaccine development.
For years, people have criticized and misrepresented the fact that the biotechnology company Senomyx used the HEK293 cell line — or Human Embryonic Kidney 293 — in research involving flavor development. The HEK293 cell line was first established in the early 1970s using cells from a kidney of a fetus.
However, numerous news reports over the years have clarified that the company didn’t put fetal cells into any food products given to consumers.
Senomyx was acquired in 2018 by the Swiss company Firmenich, which did not respond to multiple emailed requests for comment. But as a Senomyx official explained in a 2011 interview with Miami New Times, the company used the cell lines in “basically a robotic tasting system” that isolated human taste receptors in the form of proteins to test out how they reacted to flavors. If a protein reacted positively to a flavor, the company would move on to further taste tests.
Frank Graham, a professor emeritus in the departments of biology and pathology and molecular medicine at McMaster University, developed the HEK-293 cell line in the 1970s. He told The Associated Press via email that the cells “would be used in tests for various properties of compounds to be used as flavor enhancers” but “would not themselves be incorporated into beverages or other foods.”
“That would make no sense,” Graham said. “To the best of my knowledge the cells are only being used for in vitro testing of various chemicals and compounds.”
Dr. David Gorski, a surgical oncologist and managing editor of the website Science-Based Medicine, has written about misconceptions around fetal cell lines. He confirmed in an email to the AP that fetal cell line research “does not involve actual fetal tissue.”
“It uses cell lines isolated from fetuses, often decades ago,” Gorski wrote.