Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Stuck on this issue

In 1964, a female fetus was aborted at the age of 3 (gestational) months. Her fetal cells became known as WI-38, named after the Wistar Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Wistar developed the WI-38 cell line, which is still being used today for the production of the chicken pox vaccine, and the rubella component of the MMR vaccine.

In 1966, a male fetus was aborted at the age of 14 (gestational) weeks. His fetal cells became known as MRC-5, named after the Medical Research Council in London. MRC developed the MRC-5 cell line, which is still being used today for the production of the rubella component of the MMR vaccine, as well as polio, rabies, Hepatitis-A, and chicken pox vaccines.

The PER-C6 cell line was derived from the fetal tissue of a baby aborted at 18 weeks. This cell line is used by Merck for an HIV vaccine, by MedImmune for a flu vaccine, and by the National Institutes of Health for development of an ebola vaccine.

Currently, in the US, alternative vaccines are available for polio (produced by Aventis-Pasteur) and for rabies (produced by Chiron Therapeutics,) which are not manufactured using aborted fetal cell lines. Measles and mumps vaccines (which are usually administered with the rubella vaccine as MMR) are available form Merck individually, though they may be difficult to obtain. Alternatives exist for rubella and Hep-A, but they are not available in the US. (They were developed and are available in the United Kingdom.) No alternatives exist for the chicken pox vaccine. Evans Vaccines, Wyeth Ayerest, and Aventis Pasteur all make alternative flu vaccines.

If the use of aborted fetal cell lines doesn’t bother you, then you can stop reading right here.

If you are troubled by the use of aborted fetal cell lines and the lack of access to known alternatives, you can sign a petition at the Children of God for Life website. You can also request a paper copy of the petition for others to sign. (By the way, all of the above information is available at this site.) There is also information at this site about how doctors can obtain individual measles and mumps vaccines from Merck.

In the mean time, I think it is imperative that we share this information with as many people as possible. Most people don’t know about this! Alternatives to these vaccines will never become available unless drug companies are pressured by lots of people (which translates to lots of money.)

I will keep looking into this and will post again if I find more information.

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