Covid-19 Vaccines and Christian Ethics

[Soloist]

Again, are there ways to avoid using fetal cells that would not result in this outcome?

If it was funded, donated cord cells could do this quite well. The ability is here for ethical vaccines, it just needs economic incentives otherwise a company will go with what already is made.

[Bootstrap]

The only thing that will change the practice is economics. Supply and demand, if we demand an ethical option by refusing unethical options, they would do it if it actually was beneficial to them. As it is, Christians compromised on the WI-38 back in the day, and 20 years later did it again and so on and so on and will continue to as new cell lines are developed and used 20 years after the fact. Its easier to get someone to benefit from old cell lines then new cell lines regardless of if it was done during their lifetime or not. If they started using a cell line created this year, there would be outrage. As it is, the outrage from using these "older" cell lines is very muted.

To me, outrage is warranted if babies are being killed in order to harvest their stem cells. Outrage is also warranted if stem cell research motivates people to have more abortions. So far, I don't think using 20-year-old stem cell lines does either of those things. Here's one reason: if there are over 850,000 abortions a year in the United States, the baby whose cells were used for HEK-293 represents just one of those abortions, 20 years ago. I don't think that's an economic driver for abortion.

I respect your position of not wanting to profit in any way from the result of abortion. My position is different: I don't want to cheer for abortion or promote it, but I see this as analogous to organ transplant. If a person is dead, and cells or organs from that person can save lives, I think it's good to save lives. Of course, killing people in order to harvest cells or organs would be completely outrageous, but we are not talking about that. If someone was murdered, I would still accept a kidney from that person as long as he was not murdered in order to harvest a kidney and make money.

Boot, will you commit to not using new fetal cells generated after 1972 for testing, medication or for vaccines? or is this just all relative to you?

This is not academic to me at all. I want to protect lives. I think you are saying that the only fetal cell lines came from HEK-293, a child killed in 1972?

I think it's easier to protect the lives of the living than to protect the lives of the already-dead. I took the time to research this before getting the Moderna vaccine, I think I do take this seriously. At the same time, I'm looking for information, I don't consider myself accountable to you nor you to me. I might make different choices than you and vice versa. I do want to hear how you understand this so I can decide whether I need to change the way I think about the issue.

This is what you said in response to my question. I don't see you saying a yes or a no here. Care to clarify?

When I researched the Moderna vaccine, the facts I saw indicated that the only cells involved came from 1972, and were involved only for testing. That's why I felt it was OK for me to take the vaccine. I don't know enough to have an opinion on the pledge you would like me to make.

What if there were a different line that were at least 20 years old, would I accept that? That would depend a lot on whether I thought I was promoting abortion, but I might research it and make a similar decision. Covid-19 is killing a lot of people.

I certainly think I've answered your question with a no with a far more detailed explanation.

Here's something I see on forums that seems counterproductive: grading your own response, grading my response, and telling me yours is superior. I think we are each responding to the other in some detail, you are very well informed and intelligent, I respect your positions and your intelligence and the care you have given to this issue. Sometimes I think I have already answered questions you repeat, sometimes I think I have given convincing arguments you are ignoring, I'm sure the same is true for you. I try to avoid saying things like "I already proved it and you just ignored my proof" or question your reading comprehension because you might not think I proved it at all, you may have missed what I said, whatever. That's fairly normal on forums.

Yeah, forums require patience, explaining things I think I have already explained one more time, trying a different way to explain it, whatever, but that's the nature of the beast.

[Bootstrap]

Again, are there ways to avoid using fetal cells that would not result in this outcome?

If it was funded, donated cord cells could do this quite well. The ability is here for ethical vaccines, it just needs economic incentives otherwise a company will go with what already is made.

Are there realistic ways to make those economic incentives happen?

To me, it looks like mRNA can be done without fetal cells and without even cord cells. Is that true? Is there an opportunity here for a technical breakthrough that could be both more effective and more ethical?

[Soloist]

Are there realistic ways to make those economic incentives happen?

To me, it looks like mRNA can be done without fetal cells and without even cord cells. Is that true? Is there an opportunity here for a technical breakthrough that could be both more effective and more ethical?

Its not possible to create mRNA without a building block. Its possible to develop it with a cancer cell but it would cause problems to.
I'm done engaging your philosophical opinions as we can't seem to communicate effectively.

[Ken]

The only thing that will change the practice is economics. Supply and demand, if we demand an ethical option by refusing unethical options, they would do it if it actually was beneficial to them. As it is, Christians compromised on the WI-38 back in the day, and 20 years later did it again and so on and so on and will continue to as new cell lines are developed and used 20 years after the fact. Its easier to get someone to benefit from old cell lines then new cell lines regardless of if it was done during their lifetime or not. If they started using a cell line created this year, there would be outrage. As it is, the outrage from using these "older" cell lines is very muted.

To me, outrage is warranted if babies are being killed in order to harvest their stem cells. Outrage is also warranted if stem cell research motivates people to have more abortions. So far, I don't think using 20-year-old stem cell lines does either of those things. Here's one reason: if there are over 850,000 abortions a year in the United States, the baby whose cells were used for HEK-293 represents just one of those abortions, 20 years ago. I don't think that's an economic driver for abortion.

HEK-293 cells were derived from fetal kidney cells in 1973 which is 48 years ago, not 20. And any cells currently in use today are thousands of generations removed from those original cells. Orders of magnitude more generations removed than say Abraham or Moses are from the present day. If we average 4 generations per century and Moses lived in the 14th century BC then that is only about 136 generations removed from the present day (34 centuries x 4).

[Soloist]

HEK-293 cells were derived from fetal kidney cells in 1973 which is 48 years ago, not 20. And any cells currently in use today are thousands of generations removed from those original cells. Orders of magnitude more generations removed than say Abraham or Moses are from the present day. If we average 4 generations per century and Moses lived in the 14th century BC then that is only about 136 generations removed from the present day (34 centuries x 4).

Ken, How many replications do you think are possible for a cell line to go through before its no longer economical due to reduction in vitality and replication time?

And what is the max replication in your eyes, or do you understand the Hayflick limit applies?

[Ken]

HEK-293 cells were derived from fetal kidney cells in 1973 which is 48 years ago, not 20. And any cells currently in use today are thousands of generations removed from those original cells. Orders of magnitude more generations removed than say Abraham or Moses are from the present day. If we average 4 generations per century and Moses lived in the 14th century BC then that is only about 136 generations removed from the present day (34 centuries x 4).

Ken, How many replications do you think are possible for a cell line to go through before its no longer economical due to reduction in vitality and replication time?

And what is the max replication in your eyes, or do you understand the Hayflick limit applies?

This isn't my area of science but my understanding is that undifferentiated stem cells can replicate indefinitely which is one of the characteristics that make them unique from adult human cells. And that is why we can still use stem cell lines that are nearly 50 years old. The Hayflick limit of 40-60 generations applies to differentiated adult cells in an adult organism, not undifferentiated stem cells and is due to the shortening of chromosomal telomeres (ends of the chromosomes).

Like stem cells, cancer cells are also not subject to the Hayflick limit which is what makes cancer so dangerous. Otherwise cancers would be self-limiting.

Do you know differently?

[Soloist]

This isn't my area of science but my understanding is that undifferentiated stem cells can replicate indefinitely which is one of the characteristics that make them unique from adult human cells. And that is why we can still use stem cell lines that are nearly 50 years old. The Hayflick limit of 40-60 generations applies to differentiated adult cells in an adult organism, not undifferentiated stem cells and is due to the shortening of chromosomal telomeres (ends of the chromosomes).

Like stem cells, cancer cells are also not subject to the Hayflick limit which is what makes cancer so dangerous. Otherwise cancers would be self-limiting.

Do you know differently?

I'm not finding a decent source for the report, aka a research article but Dr Hayflick determined the limit by using WI-38 cells. HeLa cells are immortal, but fetal cell lines are not. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/limited-vi ... d-hayflick

Leonard Hayflick in the US during the early 1960s showed that normal populations of embryonic cells divide a finite number of times. He published his results as "The Limited In Vitro Lifetime of Human Diploid Cell Strains" in 1964. Hayflick performed the experiment with WI-38 fetal lung cells, named after the Wistar Institute, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Hayflick worked. Frank MacFarlane Burnet later called the limit in capacity for cellular division the Hayflick Limit in 1974. In the experiment, Hayflick refuted Alexis Carrel's hypothesis that cells could be transplanted and multiplied indefinitely from any single parent cell line.

Hayflick's results indicated that in a two-to-one split ratio, the average number of times a fetal cell could divide was between forty to sixty times. In adult cells, the average number of times a cell would multiply was twenty. That data indicated that in adult cells, numerous cell duplications had already occurred, as their number of duplications in the lab setting were less in comparison to the number of cell divisions in the fetal cell strains. In the experiment, Hayflick called the phase when the cell ceases to divide phase III, with phase I and II being periods in which a cell rapidly proliferates.

This is why I reject the claims that this is a one and done deal. This will continue to happen as it has.

[Soloist]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4526020/

Due to the diminishing supply of WI-38 cells, the MRC-5 line has become the most widely used cell strain in the production of HDCS-derived human vaccines. China consequently confronts 2 key challenges for the production of viral vaccines from MRC-5 cells (which are mainly obtained from abroad): concerns about influences of limited passages, and the policies of the countries from which the cells are imported. More specifically, the numbers of passages of the imported MRC-5 cells are generally higher, generally later than the 20th passage, resulting in restricted mass production due to decreased growth vitality. Additionally, according to the standard for the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China (2010), Volume III, the use of the HDCSs is limited to generations within 2-thirds of the primary cell lifespan for the manufacture of vaccines. Due to the scarce HDCSs resources, the research and production of viral HDCVs in China are substantially restricted. For example, human diploid cell rabies vaccine, which is considered to be the gold standard for rabies vaccines, is not currently available in China.16 Furthermore, the productive cell generations for the OKA-HDC on the Chinese market from 3 manufactures are MRC-5 cells in the 32nd and 33rd passages,17 which have therefore already reached the limit required as described above in Chinese Pharmacopeia (the 33rd passage is the last cell doubling that could be used in the production for the MRC-5). Relying on imported HDCSs, may lead to unstable supply as well as unpredictable costs. Therefore the intention of this study is to develop a completely new HDCS of Chinese origin that could be used in manufacturing viral vaccines.

Obviously China, but the same logic is being followed by major vaccine production companies.

[Ken]

This isn't my area of science but my understanding is that undifferentiated stem cells can replicate indefinitely which is one of the characteristics that make them unique from adult human cells. And that is why we can still use stem cell lines that are nearly 50 years old. The Hayflick limit of 40-60 generations applies to differentiated adult cells in an adult organism, not undifferentiated stem cells and is due to the shortening of chromosomal telomeres (ends of the chromosomes).

Like stem cells, cancer cells are also not subject to the Hayflick limit which is what makes cancer so dangerous. Otherwise cancers would be self-limiting.

Do you know differently?

I'm not finding a decent source for the report, aka a research article but Dr Hayflick determined the limit by using WI-38 cells. HeLa cells are immortal, but fetal cell lines are not. https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/limited-vi ... d-hayflick

Leonard Hayflick in the US during the early 1960s showed that normal populations of embryonic cells divide a finite number of times. He published his results as "The Limited In Vitro Lifetime of Human Diploid Cell Strains" in 1964. Hayflick performed the experiment with WI-38 fetal lung cells, named after the Wistar Institute, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Hayflick worked. Frank MacFarlane Burnet later called the limit in capacity for cellular division the Hayflick Limit in 1974. In the experiment, Hayflick refuted Alexis Carrel's hypothesis that cells could be transplanted and multiplied indefinitely from any single parent cell line.

Hayflick's results indicated that in a two-to-one split ratio, the average number of times a fetal cell could divide was between forty to sixty times. In adult cells, the average number of times a cell would multiply was twenty. That data indicated that in adult cells, numerous cell duplications had already occurred, as their number of duplications in the lab setting were less in comparison to the number of cell divisions in the fetal cell strains. In the experiment, Hayflick called the phase when the cell ceases to divide phase III, with phase I and II being periods in which a cell rapidly proliferates.

This is why I reject the claims that this is a one and done deal. This will continue to happen as it has.

Again, this is not my area of expertise. But the article you linked to above says that Hayflick's 1964 research used ordinary differentiated fetal cells, not undifferentiated stem cells when he compared replication rates of fetal and adult cells. It says he used fetal lung tissue, which are not stem cells.

AS I understand it, the three characteristics that make stem cells unique (and uniquely important to researchers) are: (1) they are self-replicating. Most body cells can go through a limited number of divisions and then die. Stem cells can continue to divide indefinitely, (2) they are undifferentiated which means that they do not have any of the specialized features associated with most of the cells in the body -- such as muscle, nerves, fat, and (3) they can divide and develop (or differentiate) into cells of other types.