Yes. I had a strong bias for natural pearls and therefore, freshwater pearls, before I came here, and a real "pee-you!" <holds nose> attitude about pearls with a bead inside, learned at my mother's knee, but thanks to paying attention to the ZESPA lessons, I found the courage of my convictions.
That is not to say that faux pearls do not have a place. They always will. Faux pearls are usually glass or plastic covered with pearlized paint, and akoyas are one step up in quality from that.
Akoya pearls have a very sweet MoP bead obtained by decimating the mussels of the Mississippi river for the last 100 years, sent overseas and cut up and shaped into beads. (I have posted a number of stories of the illegal trade in American mussels shells which is devastating populations of mussels in American rivers, because the legally bought shells are so high priced) Yet, they are simply the only MoP beads the akoyas can tolerate, as bead nucleating is already very traumatic with high death rates. If resin beads worked, they would be used or wood or even other shells, but nothing so far has been an adequate subitute for the unio shells - the freshwater , pearl-producing American pearl mussels.
Instead of cultivating freshwater mussels, en masse over here, (we used to have more FW pearls in American than anywhere else in the world, and we still have the largest variety of pearl producing mussels) we let a few companies dredge and sell, this now dead, natural resource to akoya pearl producers. The companies reap any natural pearls found and recyle the innards and wash the shells. Tons of mussels leave the Missisppi river basin each year to this day for the MoP and Akoya nuckeating markets.
The akoya farmer dips the beads in akoya oysters for about ------- days, until a very thin layer is accrued, .25mm is allowable on a 7mm pearl. That is about as thick as a couple of coats of nail polish. Then another bead is implanted and the oyster gets to coat that for its ever shrinking allotment of days. That has to rank somewhere about the level of the caged chickens with their bills cut of for top egg production in using live critters to mass produce a popular item.
Honest put the entire picture together. as I did in my researches on this very forum. The facts are all here.
Here is a picture of the unio I want o cultivate in my backyard pond: (I have gotten so I LOVE these critters! They have personality and readable behaviors. They are really cute! This one is potamilus purpurea and makes pearls the color of the inside of the shell! Would not anyone prefer to see pearls grown in this gorgeous natural color by a (relatively) simple small cut and a pice of mantle tissue inserted with no bead? In America. In our rivers, in our ponds, in our drainage ditches? Why do we think the Miki-mos are onto something better than that? We have been brainwashed for 100 years.
Some of us are waking up.