Aborted Fetal Tissue in Vaccines

Thank you very much for pointing out errors and correcting misinformation.

An important message well-hidden in the world’s longest paragraph.

Thx ExPat, for calming the waters on this.

The basic question in another form: If Uncle Joe was murdered and he was buried beneath the old apple tree, would it be wrong to eat those apples?

Yeah, I did a “cut-n-paste” from the article and it came out in that one paragraph format so I reposted with appropriate breaks in post #2. ;-)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3026001/posts?page=1#2

The basic question in another form: If Uncle Joe was murdered and he was buried beneath the old apple tree, would it be wrong to eat those apples?

Not exactly. It would be more like "If Uncle Joe was murdered and he was buried beneath the old apple tree to improve the yield/flavor/whatever, would it be wrong to eat those apples?

And then "...would it be wrong to sell those apples?

Thanks for the thoughtful response to the article. However, since the article that was posted relied heavily on the info at COGforlife.org (http://www.cogforlife.org/vaccines-abortions/), I wouldn't call it a "lie" unless the writer knew the info to be false. You say "no other children have to die to continue to use those cells, because the cell lines, like all established cell lines, are essentially immortal." However, Hayflick stated that this had been proven false (The Limited In Vitro Lifetime of Human Diploid Cell Strains, Experimental Cell Research, 37, pg 628, 1965; and Mortality and Immortality at the Cellular Level: A review, University of California, San Francisco, August, 1997). Do you have a different study to support your claim?

I have several years of experience working with cell lines from a variety of tissues and a variety of organisms, including human. Cell lines are immortal--they do not die out. They *can* change over time just through random mutation, which is why researchers take the steps I outlined in the previous post. Either they must analyze the cells to make sure they are what the researchers expect them to be, or they use the cells for a limited number of generations and then start with a fresh batch from the freezer. However, as long as one provides those cells with fresh medium, warmth, and a steady supply of carbon dioxide, they will live for as long as the researcher feels like taking care of them.

The exception to cultured cell immortality is in the case of "primary" cells. Those cells have never been made immortal, and they will die out after several generations. I did not mention those before, because none of the cell lines used for vaccine production are primary cells.

The references you provided are not applicable to immortalized cell lines. I couldn't look up the first one, but the date tells me that it is a publication from fairly early days of cell culture, when there were few immortalized cell lines--and people might not have known how to make them immortal. The second one refers to primary cells.

I can assure you that the mouse cell line I used in graduate school nearly 20 years ago is still in use--and the original donor mouse probably died in the 1970s.

You also state that "during a two year epidemic in the 1960s, ~11,000 babies died and another 20,000 had birth defects from rubella, in the US." However, according to this newsletter, the 11,000 deaths were from miscarriages and surgical abortions.

I was stating exactly what is posted at the CDC website, which you can examine for yourself at the link I provided. The CDC doesn't mention miscarriages or abortions. For all I know, those 11,000 miscarriages and abortions represent another 11,000 rubella deaths that the CDC did not mention.

I also find it disingenuous to point out the "hazards" of a disease in the worst-case sense without including the likelihood of occurrence which is also needed to determine risk. Decisions to vaccinate or not are typically risk-based decisions where the information is difficult to obtain as far as risk goes. Now, with the added moral implications of many vaccines being produced using aborted fetal tissue, that decision gets much easier for those who feel strongly about it.

Nothing disingenuous here. If you have never had measles or been vaccinated against it, your chance of developing measles upon exposure is nearly 100%. You have about a 0.1% chance of dying from it, and twice that chance of developing a permanent disability.

One problem with the "risks" so often featured at anti-vax websites is that they exaggerate those risks way out of context, and never compare them to the real risks of the disease prevented by the vaccine. The simplest way to put it is that if a child has a reaction to the vaccine, they are protected from experiencing a reaction many times more severe to the actual disease.

I should point out that changing to a morally acceptable cell line is not trivial. Even using the exact same virus, the company would essentially have to start almost at step one to establish a different cell line for production. All of the safety and efficacy studies would have to be repeated. This would take years and billions of dollars; the company would most likely lose any kind of patent protection by the time they receive FDA approval.

As an advocate for the lives of babies murdered by abortion, I find this statement to be highly offensive.

This was not meant to be an emotional statement, nor was it a statement of opinion. As a scientist, I try to relay the facts as dispassionately as possible and keep them as free from my own thoughts and feelings as I can.

When I said that it is not a trivial matter for a company to switch out cell lines, that is exactly what I meant. While it may sound simple to you to substitute MDCK (dog cell line) for WI-38 cells, in the eyes of the FDA, that substitution means that the vaccine produced is NOT the vaccine the company tested and submitted for approval. From a technical point of view, substituting a cell line means having to do all of the basic groundwork--growth of the virus in the alternate cell line must be characterized, growth conditions have to be optimized, and the process has to be scaled up to manufacturing quantities. On the regulatory side, the new vaccine candidate must go through animal tests, then the phase 1, 1a, 1b, 2, and 3 studies in human volunteers selected to represent the target patients who will receive the vaccine, etc. etc. This is going to take years and a few billion dollars. As I said, it is *not* trivial.

To make a long story short, simply exchanging the cell line used to make a current vaccine is not going to happen. Your best bet is to put pressure on companies to stick to using non-objectionable cell lines when they develop new vaccines.

Biotech Firm to Provide Alternatives to Vaccines Using Tissue From Abortions, Click for List of Pro-abortion and Pro-Life Vaccines

FDA Guidelines on Vaccines/Aborted Fetal Cell Lines Open for Public Comment

FDA issues new guidelines, including Aborted Fetal Cell lines. Call to action

COG Stem Cell update--Georgetown University stops use of aborted fetal cell lines.

Vatican Condemns Vaccines Made with Tissue Obtained by Abortion

Children of God for Life Backs CMA Initiative: End Aborted Fetal Vaccines

List of Canadian Vaccines Made from Aborted Babies Body Parts

Compulsory Vaccinations Threaten Religious Freedom

Vaccines and Abortion: What’s the Right Choice? (Vaccines cultured on aborted fetal tissue- ick)

USA & CANADA - ABORTED FETAL CELL LINE PRODUCTS AND ETHICAL ALTERNATIVES (vaccines)

Vaccines made with fetal cells causing autism?

Is Aborted Fetal DNA in Vaccines Linked to Autism?

IS ABORTED FETAL DNA LINKED TO AUTISM?

Merck Focusing on Combination Vaccine (Attn: doctors, parents, no moral alternatives)

Merck Stops Producing Vaccines Not Based on Abortion

Pro-Life Group Warns Doctors, Patients on Abortion-Based Polio Vaccine (Use ethical vaccine)

Wow! Thanks for all the info!