Placenta aplenty

摘要

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Curtin University It may indeed be odd to see placenta extract of "vegetable or animal" origin as an ingredient in a cosmetic product (Feedback, 2 October), but I was not altogether surprised by Richard Greenwood's revelation. When I was working as professor of nursing in a university in Ireland in 2003, and had strong links with the local hospital, I was told that it had only recently stopped collecting placentas to sell to the big cosmetic companies. I have no idea what ingredients were extracted from the human placentas, but I suspect this practice may have been a widespread in maternity hospitals in many countries.