FETAL BOVINE SERUM (FBS) FOR HUMAN CELL CULTURES
Replacing one form of cruelty and injustice with another one. Have you ever heard of fetal bovine/calf serum before? I haven’t until recently.
What’s fetal bovine serum?
Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is the liquid fraction that remains after coagulation of the blood of a bovine fetus.
How’s it used? And why?
Instead of animal experiments, cultures and organ chips made from human cells are increasingly being used, which are i.g. produced as waste during operations. They are used in toxicity testing of chemicals or drug development. To keep these cells alive and make them grow, they need a nutrient medium, i.e. a liquid containing various nutrients. Up to now, blood serum from unborn calves has been the standard medium used for this purpose.
How is it done?
“The collection of fetal calf serum (FBS) is cruel. Immediately after a pregnant cow is slaughtered, her fetus is cut out of the uterus. A thick needle is thrust between the ribs, through the skin and muscles, directly into the beating heart of the still-living calf. The blood is sucked out until the baby is anemic and dies. This procedure is done without anesthesia, although it can be assumed that calf fetuses are already capable of suffering. The worldwide annual demand is about 800,000 liters of fetal calf serum. This means that, according to an estimate by the European Biomedical Research Association, 1-2 million calves per year worldwide have to die in agony in this way.”, says @aerztegegentierversuche (Association against Animal Testing).
Are there animal-free methods?
Yes, there are FBS-free culture media, for example, human platelet lysate (hPL). It'ss produced from human platelet extracts obtained from expired blood donations. These are normally discarded.
Why aren’t the FCS-free methods practiced?
Many laboratories are inadequately educated about the use of alternative nutrient media and therefore fall back on the “tried and true.”
📣 What can you do right now? Share this information! Thank You!
If you don’t know much about animal testing, I highly recommend you to check out my blog post “The Cruelty and Absurdity of Animal Testing & Experiments” on my website. It is also available in ➸ German.
🧫 @aerztegegentierversuche | 🔬 @peta
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