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You need serums and growth media derived from animals. Not derived as in scraping a few cells with a spatula but as in grinding up foetuses into fetal calf seru

by 1457389 10y ago

You need serums and growth media derived from animals. Not derived as in scraping a few cells with a spatula but as in grinding up foetuses into fetal calf serum, or the like. Synthetic media are nowhere near as cheap or effective, at least from what I remember working in biomed research a couple years back.

marcoperaza 10y ago
>as in grinding up foetuses into fetal calf serum, or the like. You must not be paying attention to how little we care about human fetuses.
- 1457389 10y ago
  I see your point, though probably not in the way you mean. So let's pay attention shall we? FCS and FBS are collected from slaughtered dairy cows once they have exhausted their productive lifespans and rendered into meat. Details: >After slaughter and bleeding of the cow at an abattoir, the mother's uterus containing the calf fetus is removed during the evisceration process (removal of the mother's internal organs) and transferred to the blood collection room. (3). A needle is then inserted between the fetus's ribs directly into its heart and the blood is vacuumed into a sterile collection bag. This process is aimed at minimizing the risk of contamination of the serum with micro-organisms from the fetus and its environment. Only fetuses over the age of three months are used otherwise the heart is considered too small to puncture. (4) >Once collected, the blood is allowed to clot at room temperature and the serum separated through a process known as refrigerated centrifugation. >It remains questionable as to whether or not fetuses have already died from anoxia (deprivation of oxygen) prior to serum collection. Nevertheless, no anesthesia is given, despite their possible ability to experience pain and discomfort. Gestation period for a cow is around 7 months. Drawing an analogy to studies of human sentience (I am not an expert though), this is proprtionally well past the 1st trimester point where foetuses can feel pain. To speak in your language, FCS and FBS are essentially sourced from blood sucked out of the hearts of late-stage unanaesthetized 2nd-3rd trimester abortions. In this light it is not very difficult to see why vegans such as myself still have reservations about cultured meat.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    "So let's pay attention shall we?" There's no way you're going to have a productive conversation if you're going to be a condescending ass like that.
    - 1457389 10y ago
      I think that possibility went out the window as soon as he brought up abortion. I'm not here to change his mind in particular, I'm just here to win the argument.
      - jessaustin 10y ago
        Sorry you failed at that too...
kbenson 10y ago
> Synthetic media are nowhere near as cheap or effective, at least from what I remember working in biomed research a couple years back. That's an argument against the current capabilities of the technology, not against the concept itself. Given that I raised the possibility of eating your own cultured meat right after that, I think it's fairly obvious I'm not limiting the discussion to current technology (also since it's not economically feasible at the moment). But given cultured meat grown in a synthetic medium, are there ethical questions that I'm not accounting for? I can't think of any, so this may be a counter to the argument in the GP statement that "the meat industry can't ever be ethical."
- 1457389 10y ago
  Agreed, if there was a way to grow them on synthetic media then we can do away with just about all of the negative externalities of livestock farming.

by 1457389 10y ago

marcoperaza 10y ago

>as in grinding up foetuses into fetal calf serum, or the like. You must not be paying attention to how little we care about human fetuses.

1457389 10y ago
I see your point, though probably not in the way you mean. So let's pay attention shall we? FCS and FBS are collected from slaughtered dairy cows once they have exhausted their productive lifespans and rendered into meat. Details: >After slaughter and bleeding of the cow at an abattoir, the mother's uterus containing the calf fetus is removed during the evisceration process (removal of the mother's internal organs) and transferred to the blood collection room. (3). A needle is then inserted between the fetus's ribs directly into its heart and the blood is vacuumed into a sterile collection bag. This process is aimed at minimizing the risk of contamination of the serum with micro-organisms from the fetus and its environment. Only fetuses over the age of three months are used otherwise the heart is considered too small to puncture. (4) >Once collected, the blood is allowed to clot at room temperature and the serum separated through a process known as refrigerated centrifugation. >It remains questionable as to whether or not fetuses have already died from anoxia (deprivation of oxygen) prior to serum collection. Nevertheless, no anesthesia is given, despite their possible ability to experience pain and discomfort. Gestation period for a cow is around 7 months. Drawing an analogy to studies of human sentience (I am not an expert though), this is proprtionally well past the 1st trimester point where foetuses can feel pain. To speak in your language, FCS and FBS are essentially sourced from blood sucked out of the hearts of late-stage unanaesthetized 2nd-3rd trimester abortions. In this light it is not very difficult to see why vegans such as myself still have reservations about cultured meat.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  "So let's pay attention shall we?" There's no way you're going to have a productive conversation if you're going to be a condescending ass like that.
  - 1457389 10y ago
    I think that possibility went out the window as soon as he brought up abortion. I'm not here to change his mind in particular, I'm just here to win the argument.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      Sorry you failed at that too...

kbenson 10y ago

> Synthetic media are nowhere near as cheap or effective, at least from what I remember working in biomed research a couple years back. That's an argument against the current capabilities of the technology, not against the concept itself. Given that I raised the possibility of eating your own cultured meat right after that, I think it's fairly obvious I'm not limiting the discussion to current technology (also since it's not economically feasible at the moment). But given cultured meat grown in a synthetic medium, are there ethical questions that I'm not accounting for? I can't think of any, so this may be a counter to the argument in the GP statement that "the meat industry can't ever be ethical."

1457389 10y ago
Agreed, if there was a way to grow them on synthetic media then we can do away with just about all of the negative externalities of livestock farming.