YOU BROTHER ARE A TRUE KNIGHT FOR LIFE!
Posted on 01/31/2004 11:41:35 AM PST by cpforlife.org
YOU BROTHER ARE A TRUE KNIGHT FOR LIFE!
From http://www.cogforlife.org/gupost.htm
In July 2003 Children of God for Life discovered that aborted fetal cell lines were being used in research at Georgetown University. We wrote to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick asking him to use his authority and put an end to the research. When our letters went unanswered, we followed up with phone calls and subsequent letters in September. In December, we received a response from His Eminence stating, "Most of the problems in your letter have been resolved and I am peaceful that the concerns expressed in your letter are no longer valid."
Was it a veiled attempt to placate the unsuspecting? How would we know if the University had in fact complied? The best way seemed to let the matter become public among small Catholic groups by thanking the Cardinal for his help. News broke quickly. The GU campus newspaper the Hoya called to investigate further. In a January 23rd article, Executive Director of GUMC Communications Amy DeMaria stated, “Although we were already in compliance with the directives, we felt it was prudent to remove from our tissue bank the four cell lines to make it absolutely clear that GUMC is committed to conducting research in a way that is in full compliance with the ERDs and Catholic moral teaching. No research was disrupted in the removal of the cell lines.” (Read the entire article in the Hoya)
Two days later, the Washington Post picked up the story and pushed further still. In a telephone interview with Amy Argetsinger, Children of God for Life would finally learn the truth. (see article below)
Our fight does not end here. For if it is okay for a Catholic institution to use these aborted fetal cell lines in research, then certainly the vaccines and medical procedures derived from them are okay too, so why bother getting ethical alternatives? And why bother with the new Fair Labeling and Informed Consent Legislation (see www.cogforlife.org/flica.htm ) proposed to Congress Jan 20th? If it is morally okay to use murdered babies in research why should the public be made aware of this when purchasing medical products? In fact, why bother with any ethical research at all?
We stand poised to bring ethical alternatives to the American people that are not derived from aborted fetal cell lines - yet this decision by GU may bring that effort to a screeching halt. If you are concerned with not only the immoral, non-Catholic activity conducted at one of this country's oldest Catholic institutions, but with what the long term implications mean to you and your families, please join our efforts to stop this.
GU to Continue Controversial Research
Use of Aborted Fetal Cells Prompts Probe at Catholic Institution
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61643-2004Jan29.html
By Amy Argetsinger and Avram Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 30, 2004 ; Page B01
The letter last fall from an antiabortion group posed an unexpected quandary for Georgetown University Medical Center .
A Florida-based group wrote to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington that some scientists at Georgetown , a Catholic university, were doing research using cells derived from aborted fetuses.
An in-house investigation verified the claim. But when 14 of the researchers involved said that ending the use of the cells in question would jeopardize years of work and funding, the matter was turned over to ethicists. In a recommendation that scholars said could mark a first in Catholic medical research in the United States , Georgetown has decided to let those researchers continue their work.
The Rev. Kevin T. FitzGerald, a university bioethicist, said he reasoned that the scientists did not know the cells had come from aborted fetuses when they began their work and should not be forced to abandon potentially lifesaving studies or risk forfeiting grants. The benefits to society, he said, far outweigh the harm done by using the cells, because the abortions were not performed for the purpose of providing the cells to scientists.
"The ideal would be not to be involved with [aborted fetal cells] at all," said FitzGerald, a Jesuit priest who holds a doctorate in molecular genetics. "Obviously, we don't live in an ideal world. We do the best we can."
Four other Georgetown researchers agreed to switch to other cell lines after determining they could do so without compromising their work. The medical center has removed the controversial frozen cell lines from its central repository on campus.
But those moves do not preclude a Georgetown researcher from using aborted fetal cells in the future if there are no alternatives. FitzGerald said each instance would have to be judged.
"We have to pull in the administrators at the university to say what sorts of things can we put in place as far as a screening process," he said. "We have to figure out who does it, where does the screening take place, how is it structured, who decides. I don't know what we're going to be able to do or not do. This is new ground."
John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston, said the ethical issues surrounding the use of fetal cells, embryonic stem cells and cloning are the most controversial facing the church. "I don't see the moral difficulty in using these cell lines, because you're not contributing in any way to the abortions, which took place decades ago," Haas said. "However, there is the risk of leading people to think that [some Catholic institutions do not] consider abortion to be a great evil and are indifferent to it and willing to work with tissue that result from that kind of action."
Haas said Georgetown is the first Catholic research institution that has addressed the issue publicly and said it is possible that others have made internal decisions that have not been disclosed.
Debra Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, who initiated the complaint, said she was dismayed to learn that Georgetown has made compromises in coping with a complex problem. She said McCarrick wrote to her last month to say her concerns "had been resolved," which she took to mean that the cell lines were no longer in use.
Vinnedge said she could understand Georgetown 's position. "Once you start your research, you can't start introducing variables," she said, adding that she hopes the institution will retire the cell lines once the particular research projects are completed. Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said McCarrick had asked Georgetown to look into the letter from Vinnedge and was satisfied with its response.
Some of the involved cell lines, which are widely used in medical research nationwide, were derived from cells that were harvested from aborted fetuses in Europe nearly 40 years ago, while others are more recent. Scientists say they prefer working with cells from fetuses because they can grow rapidly and adapt to new environments better than those from mature humans. Cell lines can be maintained indefinitely in the laboratory, leaving little need to extract new ones.
Some of Georgetown 's cells have been at the medical center for years, stored in a liquid nitrogen freezer. They are being used by scientists in studies on treatments for illnesses that include Alzheimer's disease, cancer, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and heart disease, said Georgetown spokeswoman Amy DeMaria.
Fetal cells are not subject to federal restrictions, such as a ban on federal funding of research using embryonic stem cells created after August 2001. The Catholic church objects to research on cells from aborted fetuses, but it allows the use of cells from miscarried fetuses, including those from spontaneous abortions, because they were unplanned.
Vinnedge's organization, based in Clearwater , Fla. , was established to protest the use of aborted fetal cell lines in developing vaccines. From reading scientific journals, Vinnedge said, she had identified several cell lines said to have come from aborted fetuses. When she searched for them by code number on the Internet, she found them on a Georgetown Web site listing cell lines in use at the medical center.
"I've never seen anything like this at a Catholic university," she said in a telephone interview this week.
Vinnedge's letter to McCarrick triggered an unprecedented internal review by Georgetown bioethicists, university officials said.
In weighing how to handle the issue, Georgetown looked to the debate of a decade ago, when many Catholics became aware that cells from an aborted fetus were used to originate cultures used to manufacture chicken pox vaccine and measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Since then, a measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been developed without cells from an aborted fetus, but the chicken pox vaccine is still made with the same cell line.
Church officials concluded that the benefits of widespread immunization significantly outweighed the drawbacks of using aborted fetal cells, said FitzGerald.
"The connection to the abortion was distant and remote enough to say that this in no way encouraged or facilitated further abortions," he said. "The good was a proportionately strong enough argument to say, 'Do this.' "
Georgetown applied the same rationale to the new dilemma, reasoning that the work its scientists had been doing was too important "to throw all this good stuff out," FitzGerald said.
But FitzGerald acknowledged the practical challenge of avoiding the cell lines in future research projects. Investigators often must use a particular line of aborted fetal cells to qualify for a grant because the National Institutes of Health or other research funding agencies want to compare the results with other studies performed using the same source material. Using cells with different traits would make comparisons invalid, he said.
Fitzgerald said Georgetown scientists should not feel threatened by the university's actions. "We're not trying to roll back anybody's freedoms or disrupt anybody's research," he said.
Staff writer Rick Weiss contributed to this report.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh....Funding, Funding, Funding...
$$$$$$$$
I have no intention of letting this drop. This has to stop and the Catholic officials involved in this must be exposed and held accountable.
There is no reason this had to happen other than pride and greed. These doctors and researchers could work on other medical projects that would not involve aborted materials.
Let us suggest that Cardinal McCarrick reflect more prayerfully on this matter and search his own conscience. Along with the members of the Society of Jesus at Georgetown University who still take the Catholic faith seriously.
#5: Georgetown University to Continue Controversial Research
She asked me to post and for everyone to please spread the word and follow her request to write to the cardinal--even if you are not Catholic. Please help.
--------------------------------------------------
While many of you may have already seen this, I am writing to ask for your help. Cardinal McCarrick has made a grave error in thinking that his decision to allow aborted fetal cell line research at a Catholic university is morally okay. That is far from the truth and is against all we have been taught through Donum Vitae, Evangelium Vitae, Ex Corde Ecclesiae - and the Catechism. If aborted fetal cell line research is okay, what is next? Embryonic Stem Cell Research? Human Cloning? Why not? If the embryos, fetuses, babies are murdered elsewhere and they had nothing to do with that destruction of innocent human life, well then why not go ahead and use them? Think of all that federal grant research money....
GU has traded its Catholic identity for blood money. I am asking you to voice your outrage by writing to Cardinal McCarrick and demand this is stopped. Further, I need you to either email or snail mail me a copy of the letter you send because we are taking formal steps to have this stopped at once. If you care about our faith...if you care about our future Catholic education...if you care at all that these same smug bioethicists who have misled the faithful for years will continue to do so until they are silenced, then please, take the time to write. If you do not write then I ask you to keep me in your prayers because I stand to lose a great deal in the work I have done for the past 4 years for America to bring ethical vaccines to this country. For if it is okay to use these aborted fetal cell lines in research, then why not use them in vaccines too? And why on earth would we need ethical alternatives? And why on earth should the public know the truth? And why should we have regulations forcing the pharmaceutical companies to divulge what they are doing? And why on earth would an ethical company agree to help us at last? All of this hinges right now on this latest scandal by a so called "Catholic" entity - right in the heart of Washington DC where public policy is made! Read what the Post had to say today below...and then write to:
Most Reverend Theodore Cardinal McCarrick
Archdiocese of Washington
P.O. Box 29260
Washington, D.C. 20017
And send me a copy by email Cogforlife@aol.com or to:
Debi Vinnedge
Children of God for Life
2130 Catalina Dr
Clearwater, FL 33764
God have mercy on us all...
Debi
--------------------------------
GU to Continue Controversial Research Use of Aborted Fetal Cells Prompts Probe at Catholic Institution
By Amy Argetsinger and Avram Goldstein Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, January 30, 2004; Page B01
The letter last fall from an antiabortion group posed an unexpected quandary for Georgetown University Medical Center.
A Florida-based group wrote to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington that some scientists at Georgetown, a Catholic university, were doing research using cells derived from aborted fetuses.
An in-house investigation verified the claim. But when 14 of the researchers involved said that ending the use of the cells in question would jeopardize years of work and funding, the matter was turned over to ethicists. In a recommendation that scholars said could mark a first in Catholic medical research in the United States, Georgetown has decided to let those researchers continue their work.
(So does this mean that GU is setting a standard for other Catholic universities? Will we now have MORE of this going on elsewhere?)
The Rev. Kevin T. FitzGerald, a university bioethicist, said he reasoned that the scientists did not know the cells had come from aborted fetuses when they began their work and should not be forced to abandon potentially lifesaving studies or risk forfeiting grants. The benefits to society, he said, far outweigh the harm done by using the cells, because the abortions were not performed for the purpose of providing the cells to scientists.
(They didn't know but now they do. If someone gives you a million bucks and later you find out it was stolen, you have to give it back. And Fitzgerald has no idea WHY those abortions were originally done but most certainly, the intent for using the babies in research is an indisputable fact.)
"The ideal would be not to be involved with [aborted fetal cells] at all," said FitzGerald, a Jesuit priest who holds a doctorate in molecular genetics. "Obviously, we don't live in an ideal world. We do the best we can."
Four other Georgetown researchers agreed to switch to other cell lines after determining they could do so without compromising their work. The medical center has removed the controversial frozen cell lines from its central repository on campus.
But those moves do not preclude a Georgetown researcher from using aborted fetal cells in the future if there are no alternatives. FitzGerald said each instance would have to be judged.
(There are ALWAYS other choices for ethical research in the future. Non aborted cell lines are plentiful!)
"We have to pull in the administrators at the university to say what sorts of things can we put in place as far as a screening process," he said. "We have to figure out who does it, where does the screening take place, how is it structured, who decides. I don't know what we're going to be able to do or not do. This is new ground."
John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston, said the ethical issues surrounding the use of fetal cells, embryonic stem cells and cloning are the most controversial facing the church. "I don't see the moral difficulty in using these cell lines, because you're not contributing in any way to the abortions, which took place decades ago," Haas said. "However, there is the risk of leading people to think that [some Catholic institutions do not] consider abortion to be a great evil and are indifferent to it and willing to work with tissue that result from that kind of action."
Haas said Georgetown is the first Catholic research institution that has addressed the issue publicly and said it is possible that others have made internal decisions that have not been disclosed.
(This in itself leads to further research and SCANDAL)
Debra Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, who initiated the complaint, said she was dismayed to learn that Georgetown has made compromises in coping with a complex problem. She said McCarrick wrote to her last month to say her concerns "had been resolved," which she took to mean that the cell lines were no longer in use.
Vinnedge said she could understand Georgetown's position. "Once you start your research, you can't start introducing variables," she said, adding that she hopes the institution will retire the cell lines once the particular research projects are completed. Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said McCarrick had asked Georgetown to look into the letter from Vinnedge and was satisfied with its response.
(They left out a key phrase in my quote. What I really said was that "I understand you can't introduce variables in research BUT that does not excuse the continued use of them." Then I ASKED if they were going to retire the cell lines and the reporter said she didn't know.)
Some of the involved cell lines, which are widely used in medical research nationwide, were derived from cells that were harvested from aborted fetuses in Europe nearly 40 years ago, while others are more recent. Scientists say they prefer working with cells from fetuses because they can grow rapidly and adapt to new environments better than those from mature humans. Cell lines can be maintained indefinitely in the laboratory, leaving little need to extract new ones.
Some of Georgetown's cells have been at the medical center for years, stored in a liquid nitrogen freezer. They are being used by scientists in studies on treatments for illnesses that include Alzheimer's disease, cancer, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and heart disease, said Georgetown spokeswoman Amy DeMaria.
Fetal cells are not subject to federal restrictions, such as a ban on federal funding of research using embryonic stem cells created after August 2001. The Catholic church objects to research on cells from aborted fetuses, but it allows the use of cells from miscarried fetuses, including those from spontaneous abortions, because they were unplanned.
(My point exactly: the Church does not allow research on cells from abortion!)
Vinnedge's organization, based in Clearwater, Fla., was established to protest the use of aborted fetal cell lines in developing vaccines. From reading scientific journals, Vinnedge said, she had identified several cell lines said to have come from aborted fetuses. When she searched for them by code number on the Internet, she found them on a Georgetown Web site listing cell lines in use at the medical center.
"I've never seen anything like this at a Catholic university," she said in a telephone interview this week.
Vinnedge's letter to McCarrick triggered an unprecedented internal review by Georgetown bioethicists, university officials said.
In weighing how to handle the issue, Georgetown looked to the debate of a decade ago, when many Catholics became aware that cells from an aborted fetus were used to originate cultures used to manufacture chicken pox vaccine and measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Since then, a measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been developed without cells from an aborted fetus, but the chicken pox vaccine is still made with the same cell line.
Church officials concluded that the benefits of widespread immunization significantly outweighed the drawbacks of using aborted fetal cells, said FitzGerald.
(No "Church officials" have ever said this - only bioethicists and theologians. The Magisterium has NEVER said one way or another whether the vaccines were okay.)
"The connection to the abortion was distant and remote enough to say that this in no way encouraged or facilitated further abortions," he said. "The good was a proportionately strong enough argument to say, 'Do this.' "
(The connection to abortion is not so remote as they think and the history on these abortions proves otherwise. Fitzgerald is wrong. Besides, one can never do evil so that good may come from it.)
Georgetown applied the same rationale to the new dilemma, reasoning that the work its scientists had been doing was too important "to throw all this good stuff out," FitzGerald said.
But FitzGerald acknowledged the practical challenge of avoiding the cell lines in future research projects. Investigators often must use a particular line of aborted fetal cells to qualify for a grant because the National Institutes of Health or other research funding agencies want to compare the results with other studies performed using the same source material. Using cells with different traits would make comparisons invalid, he said.
(So they will keep doing it for the money...wonderful!!)
FitzGerald said Georgetown scientists should not feel threatened by the university's actions. "We're not trying to roll back anybody's freedoms or disrupt anybody's research," he said.
Staff writer Rick Weiss contributed to this report.
It is also a grave error for anyone calling himself a Catholic "ethicist" to suggest this is OK or that anyone should be comfortable with using cells derived from an abortion (just because it happened a long time ago). That's ridiculous. All for...what? For money? So some jerk can take a vacation to Europe or play golf at some elite club?
SHAME. SHAME...
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