Covid-19 Vaccines and Christian Ethics

[nett]

As I understand it, the mRNA vaccines (including Pfizer and Moderna) contain no fetal cells and no fetal cell cultures are used to manufacture these vaccines. But when the vaccines were being developed, they did use one of these cell lines in a test used to confirm that the mRNA vaccines work.

Here's one place this was reported.

Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine, and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, addressed the issue in a memo to their brother bishops.

A copy of the memo was obtained by Catholic News Service Nov. 24.

"Neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna vaccine involved the use of cell lines that originated in fetal tissue taken from the body of an aborted baby at any level of design, development or production," the two prelates said. "They are not completely free from any connection to abortion, however, as both Pfizer and Moderna made use of a tainted cell line for one of the confirmatory lab tests of their products.

"There is thus a connection, but it is relatively remote," they continued. "Some are asserting that if a vaccine is connected in any way with tainted cell lines, then it is immoral to be vaccinated with them. This is an inaccurate portrayal of Catholic moral teaching."

I believe this cell line was HEK-293, kidney cell line that was isolated from an aborted baby in 1972. I believe this cell line is not used in production testing, but was used in early research to validate what they had produced. I believe there are zero cells derived from this baby in the mRNA vaccines themselves.

First off, is this information accurate? If not, what part of this is wrong?

Sources:

https://lozierinstitute.org/update-covi ... ell-lines/

https://s27589.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploa ... int-46.pdf

Soloist would know. He's done more research on this than I anyone I know of.

[joshuabgood]

Do you reject all medical interventions that were developed through testing on cell lines?

Yes. (Developed on aborted baby cell lines, to be specific.)

I would add that I object to specific, manufactured therapies (like pharmaceuticals, biologics, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and so forth.)

Sometimes this information is very hard to get to find out if something can be used or not. I used to err on the side of not worrying about it. I feel that is not right anymore and that I should err on the side of the caution, as testing on aborted babies is becoming much, much more common.

Ok. I respect this position.

[Bootstrap]

First off, is this information accurate? If not, what part of this is wrong?

Sources:

https://lozierinstitute.org/update-covi ... ell-lines/

https://s27589.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploa ... int-46.pdf

Soloist would know. He's done more research on this than I anyone I know of.

Yes, and I would love to hear from him in this thread.

[Soloist]

As I understand it, the mRNA vaccines (including Pfizer and Moderna) contain no fetal cells and no fetal cell cultures are used to manufacture these vaccines. But when the vaccines were being developed, they did use one of these cell lines in a test used to confirm that the mRNA vaccines work.


First off, is this information accurate? If not, what part of this is wrong?

Sources:

https://lozierinstitute.org/update-covi ... ell-lines/

https://s27589.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploa ... int-46.pdf

That would be correct for Pfizer, Moderna used the HEK-293 to develop the spike protein itself. The other aspect being missed is that Moderna requires DNA to make the RNA, now the DNA is replicated in ecoli but where did the DNA come from? this data isn't publically available and the assumption is the HEK-293. Pfizer publicized their DNA source which was a leukemia cell.

Do you reject all medical interventions that were developed through testing on cell lines?

Yes. This is why I took the stance of no medical drugs or therapies developed after 1980 unless I have time to research it.

[Soloist]

If the country took a stance of forbidding new creation of cell lines and forbidding using the fetal tissue or cells from abortion, I wouldn't have much of a strong argument. As it is, this is continuing and growing massively.

[Josh]

If the country took a stance of forbidding new creation of cell lines and forbidding using the fetal tissue or cells from abortion, I wouldn't have much of a strong argument. As it is, this is continuing and growing massively.

This is exactly my position - if one reviews my posting history, you can see I used to be more comfortable using vaccines tested against stem cells (and Soloist and I argued about this).

I had hopes that some of the COVID vaccines would end up not being tested on stem cells, since there were so many different brands available. Novavax had hope but it has been tested on them too now, but if they did no more testing with stem cells, I think I could convince myself it would be moral to use it. But unfortunately Novavax seems to be dead in the water, and there doesn't seem to be any interest at all in developing a COVID-19 vaccine that doesn't involve fetal stem cells.

[ken_sylvania]

As I understand it, the mRNA vaccines (including Pfizer and Moderna) contain no fetal cells and no fetal cell cultures are used to manufacture these vaccines. But when the vaccines were being developed, they did use one of these cell lines in a test used to confirm that the mRNA vaccines work.


First off, is this information accurate? If not, what part of this is wrong?

Sources:

https://lozierinstitute.org/update-covi ... ell-lines/

https://s27589.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploa ... int-46.pdf

That would be correct for Pfizer, Moderna used the HEK-293 to develop the spike protein itself. The other aspect being missed is that Moderna requires DNA to make the RNA, now the DNA is replicated in ecoli but where did the DNA come from? this data isn't publically available and the assumption is the HEK-293. Pfizer publicized their DNA source which was a leukemia cell.

Do you reject all medical interventions that were developed through testing on cell lines?

Yes. This is why I took the stance of no medical drugs or therapies developed after 1980 unless I have time to research it.

For some reason I feel no great urge to go get injected with a solution that contains RNA made by DNA from a leukemia cell. I wonder why???

[Bootstrap]

If the country took a stance of forbidding new creation of cell lines and forbidding using the fetal tissue or cells from abortion, I wouldn't have much of a strong argument. As it is, this is continuing and growing massively.

Personally, I don't have a real issue with a vaccine that was tested using a cell line from 1972. I would have a real problem with vaccines made from recently aborted babies. I very much appreciated the compromise of "no new fetal lines" that was reached way back then. I don't yet understand what is happening with newer lines.

[JimFoxvog]

I believe abortion is wrong.

I do not believe that using parts from aborted children motivates or increases abortions. As I would be happy to have my body parts being used for good, however I might die, I do not think it dishonors the dead to use their remains for the good of others.

Therefore I have no moral qualms about using medical solutions that used cell lines that originated from abortions.

[Bootstrap]

Going back to this framework:

When I look at this, I see this as more or less equivalent to:

1. Will more babies be killed if I take the vaccine? versus
2. Could other people die if I don't take the vaccine? Or could I die without good reason, leaving my wife and family without me?

I appreciate and respect what Soloist has written. Let me try to weigh this out as I understand it so far.

As long as HEK-293 is the only fetal line involved, we are talking about one baby aborted in 1972, and the abortion was not done for the purpose of harvesting stem cells.

I believe that Covid-19 can kill people, I would not feel comfortable visiting my mother in an assisted living facility if I had not been vaccinated, I would not feel comfortable worshiping inside with some people who are old or have serious chronic illnesses. We are up to 626,000 deaths by Covid-19.

I realize that some people may not believe these numbers or understand the science the way I do. But let me ask this as a hypothetical: if you believed that there was a real chance that someone else might be hospitalized or die as a result of your decision not to get vaccinated, how would you weigh that against the baby whose cells were used to test the vaccinations? I want to focus on the ethical arguments, given my understanding of the facts. If you don't think Covid is a real threat or you don't think vaccinations matter, it's a different ethical question. So if you believed in the same fact situation I do, how would you weigh 1 versus 2?