September 14, 2005
SWEET! SOYLENT GREEN FIGHTS WRINKLES!:
The beauty products from the skin of executed Chinese prisoners (Ian Cobain and Adam Luck, September 13, 2005, The Guardian)
A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about". [...]
[T]he Guardian has learned that the company has exported collagen products to the UK in the past. An agent told customers it had also exported to the US and European countries, and that it was trying to develop fillers using tissue from aborted foetuses.
When formally approached by the Guardian, the agent denied the company was using skin harvested from executed prisoners. However, he had already admitted it was doing precisely this during a number of conversations with a researcher posing as a Hong Kong businessman. The Press Complaints Commission's code of practice permits subterfuge if there is no other means of investigating a matter of public interest.
The agent told the researcher: "A lot of the research is still carried out in the traditional manner using skin from the executed prisoner and aborted foetus."
Makes dandy lamp shades too. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 14, 2005 5:58 PM
Since the prisoner was going to be discarded anyway, what's the harm?
Posted by: Timothy at September 14, 2005 6:06 PMSo long as no animals are harmed. They're just like people, you know, only better.
Posted by: David Cohen at September 14, 2005 6:27 PMDavid: Indeed. Imagine the lable proudly boasting "Not Tested on Animals."
Posted by: John Resnick at September 14, 2005 6:37 PMNo comment.
Posted by: Genecis at September 14, 2005 6:59 PMSurely, the right for you and your physician in the sacred zone of privacy to use fresh fetus collagen to fill out someoneone's skinny is permissible. Dat ole man penumbra, he keep emanatin' along.
Posted by: Ed Bush at September 14, 2005 7:22 PMThis is not good. This is much worse than cat jokes.
Do we see the problem here? When someone is making a buck out of it there becomes a motive to place a thumb on the scales of justice. I wonder what they are doing with the gold teeth.
Posted by: Lou Gots at September 14, 2005 7:28 PMI'll be expecting to see the 30-minute late-night infomercial for the new miracle cream any day now...
Posted by: John at September 14, 2005 7:30 PMOrrin,
Were you referring to Ed Geen? Did you know someone stole his tombstone? We've had our share of wierdos in WI. I'm sleeping tonight with one eye open. By the way, you people are sicko.
Posted by: AllenS at September 14, 2005 8:18 PMAllen:
No, don't you remember the old sci-fi film, Soylent Green?
Posted by: oj at September 14, 2005 8:21 PMYes I remember the film Soylent Green. Ed Geen was a nut job in the late 50's or early 60's in Wisconsin that killed women and gutted them like deer making lamp shades out of their skin. I think he may have dug up bodies out of graveyards also. He had issues.
Posted by: AllenS at September 14, 2005 8:34 PMSpeck, Gein, Gacy, Dahmer, it's the Lake water....
Posted by: oj at September 14, 2005 8:39 PMThat's why most of us drink beer.
Posted by: AllenS at September 14, 2005 8:57 PMI thought the lampshade reference was to the Holocaust.
Posted by: Glaivester at September 14, 2005 9:24 PMMe too--though Gein'll do too.
Posted by: oj at September 14, 2005 10:18 PMOne of your better headlines, would have scanned if you'd left off the "Sweet!" Impulse control, always impulse control.
Posted by: joe shropshire at September 15, 2005 1:25 AMRe: Wisconsin's lake water, check out Micheal Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip. I guess there is a movie out now in addition to the book published in the 70s which I haven't seen (anyone out there see it?)
In addition to being one of the wierdest books I've ever read, it offers visceral proof of what Orrin is always pointing out: compared to even our grandparents, we have it incredibly easy.
Posted by: ted welter at September 15, 2005 9:52 AMI've read "Wisconsin Death Trip". Pretty fascinating, and yes very weird. Not sure how valuable it actual is as a historical document, though. More like a very idiosyncratic historical collage.
Posted by: Twn at September 15, 2005 11:59 AM