Vaccines that use human fetal cells draw fire

[NNadir]

In case, at this late date, you had any doubt that the right wing is far more interested in fertilized eggs than it is in living breathing humans, adults and children, there's this news item from this week's issue of Science: Vaccines that use human fetal cells draw fire. (Meredith Wadman, Science, June 12, 2020, Vol. 368, Issue 6496, pp. 1170-1171) It appears to be open sourced.

Some excerpts:

Senior Catholic leaders in the United States and Canada, along with other antiabortion groups, are raising ethical objections to promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates that are manufactured using cells derived from human fetuses electively aborted decades ago. They have not sought to block government funding for the vaccines, which include two candidate vaccines that the Trump administration plans to support with an investment of up to $1.7 billion, as well as a third candidate made by a Chinese company in collaboration with Canada's National Research Council (NRC). But they are urging funders and policymakers to ensure that companies develop other vaccines that do not rely on human fetal cell lines and, in the United States, asking the government to “incentivize” firms to make only vaccines that don't rely on fetal cells...

...Now, research groups around the world are working to develop more than 130 candidate vaccines against COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization. At least six of those candidates use one of two human fetal cell lines: HEK-293, a kidney cell line widely used in research and industry that comes from a fetus aborted in about 1972; and PER. C6, a proprietary cell line owned by Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, developed from retinal cells from an 18-week-old fetus aborted in 1985. Both cell lines were developed in the lab of molecular biologist Alex van der Eb at Leiden University.

Two of the six vaccines have entered human trials (see table, below). Five are made by using human fetal cells as “factories” to make adenoviruses that carry genes from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19...

It's OK, though, to put babies in cages after they're born. There has been no announcement as to whether it will prove "ethical" to use cell lines from babies in cages after they die. Probably, the same people carrying on about the fetal cells from 1972 couldn't care less about those babies, because they were already born, and lost protection from the self declared "ethics" mavens, the minute they took air into their lungs.

[donkeypoofed]

1. That's it, I'ma request a vaccine insert asap.

This is disturbing.

[Lulu KC]

2. I need to learn about this

I have a family member with multiple myeloma who would not have stem cell treatment because of this.

[Lulu KC]

3. Which reminds me of this

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/trumps-baby-lives-matter-onesie-is-more-pro-life-coopting.html

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I remember years ago some woman who was

adamantly opposed to abortion, needed some kind of treatment for her serious illness (can't recall just what it was) that was derived from similar fetal cells. Well, she got the treatment, which I thought was highly hypocritical of her. I mean, if she's that opposed to abortion then live in the world you want for everyone, which means refusing this kind of treatment.

But then, a lot of people are against abortion until they find themselves with a real, live, unwanted pregnancy.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. And I've heard of sad stories where very young children have died from cancers (or related...

diseases), and the grief stricken parents did donate a substantial amount of their child's tissues for medical research in an attempt to find an effective cure for these cancers, in their words saying that if this action in the memory of their child resulted in only one child being saved in the future, so be it. Parents should have every right to do as they wish in these sad circumstances.

So in effect, such parents in similar circumstances could donate the same material(s) and in effect, we right at where we were before (if they were in a state that allowed the gathering of these donated material). Thus, were the fetal materials being discussed here actually those materials obtained in 1972 (the article says it was 1972 material), or replaced with totally legally donated tissues? If
the materials used was donated by grieving parents after 1972, then I don't understand what the issue here is then...perhaps I'm misunderstanding the issue, or these people are trying to drum up support for their non issue.

These people are the ultimate in hypocrites, being that are children today, are being thrown into something like prison camps for simply being an illegal immigrant, per the kindness of the trump administration.

Where are these antiabortionists and/ or catholic leaders with regard to these children (and their families being thrown into 'jail'/'prison camp')? These children and their families are living now. There are stories of child abuse occurring via poorly enforced child labor laws around the globe, and yet, these fine, outstanding individuals are no where to be seen. They seem to be selectively blind to various things being suffered by children around the globe.

[EarnestPutz]

6. I'm expecting to see the "anti-vaxxers" go a little nuts when we do have a....

...Covid-19 vaccine and we start suggesting that people get their kids vaccinated before going to school. But I confess that I had not thought our current situation through or I might have seen, as you did, that the actual production of a vaccine will have to overcome obstacles set in place by another subset of stupid people.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. We need a fact-based SCOTUS which rule "get over it", with teeth in it.

Moscow Mitch is trying to make sure we have anything but that, just to please the rabid base.

[Warpy]

8. As I understand it, the stem cells being used are from a very old line

since the RCC managed to throw a massive hissy fit to prevent the harvesting of new stem cell lines back in the 80s or early 90s (having a senior moment) but was stopped short of preventing the existing lines being used. They put the US decades behind the rest of the world in pure stem cell research, congratulations, boys.

Now we know that some types of stem cells can be harvested from cord blood and placentas, giving them even less of a leg to stand on.

Those old men in dresses need to restrict themselves to abstract arguments on theology and leave the real world to us.