As if all cells could serve equally well in the stead of olfactory and taste cells?
Funny nobody told my taste buds for bitter that they ought to be able to respond to sweet and sour, and that my nose for a rose ought to be that for a skunk, etc. The sensory world would become a kaleidoscope of unpredictability!
It is implausible from an empirical point of view, though as a matter of mere science I would welcome seeing an explanation of how scientists coaxed these kidney cells into mimicking the capacity to recognize the similarity between various chemical guises of, say, a lime flavor, and to know that it isn’t a strawberry or vinegar or quinine. And I’d bet that much less than “40 years” went into that part of the study, and that if they could get a few golden tongues and golden noses to donate their bodies they could do far better with lines from that.
It’s possible other cells might work better, but these were there and convenient. Remember they weren’t constantly harvesting cells from fresh abortions, these all came from the culturation of ONE tissue sample from ONE abortion in the early 70s.
It’s not 40 years going into “the study”, it’s a tissue sample that was taken 40 years ago and the keep it cultured and fed so it continues to reproduce cells that they’ve used for many thousands of studies, some commercial some not, in the intervening years. That’s the thing about tissue samples, treated properly they last forever.