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“The miracle of God”: this is how Donald Trump called the drug with which he was treated COVID-19, remembers Deutsche Welle. Does one of abortion’s fiercest opponents know that cells derived from human embryos have been used for the miracle cure?
When the condition of the president of the United States worsened after becoming infected with the coronavirus, doctors prescribed an antibody drug. To everyone’s surprise, the tool worked extremely quickly, and only a few days later, Trump returned to work at the White House. He himself described the drug as “God’s blessing” and called the successful treatment “God’s miracle.”
The experimental REGN-CoV2 antibodies were produced, with or without God’s help, by the American biotech company Regeneron. Cells extracted from human embryonic tissue are also used in this treatment method.
Does Trump know why he was treated?
From a purely political point of view, this is hypocrisy, as Trump and his administration, as outspoken opponents of abortion, have done much to limit these highly scientific methods. In 2019, by order of Trump, state subsidies for health authorities were cut, including for the investigation of human embryonic tissues after an abortion. The latter are part of the efforts to combat AIDS and cancer. A new commission has been created in the Ministry of Health, which includes many opponents of abortion. So far, it has rejected 13 of the 14 requests for such studies.
In January 2020, during an anti-abortion event, Trump said, “Unborn children have never had a stronger advocate in the White House.” And more: each child is “a holy and precious gift from God.”
For the production of the drug REGN-CoV2, tissue from human cells is not used, but from the hamster ovaries, the so-called CHO cells. However, human embryonic tissue cell cultures were used to test the action of these antibodies. In particular, it involves human embryonic kidney tissue after an abortion performed in the Netherlands in the 1970s.
These cells, whose scientific name is HEK 293T, have since been used regularly in laboratories around the world. Also the American company RegmeNeron used the HEK 293T cells in question to produce so-called viral pseudoparticles. These are virus-like structures that contain the spike protein from the deadly SARS CoV-2 coronavirus. Only in this way was it possible to determine how effectively the antibodies in question attacked the virus.
Ignorance or hypocrisy?
The current debate over the use of antibodies has drawn attention, not just in the United States, to an area of medical research that often uses cells derived from aborted fetal tissue, such as the development of new vaccines. Including Regeneron does not deny this. But because the HEK 293T cells in question were taken a long time ago and are now used in a laboratory, they cannot be considered “human.” “It depends on the interpretation,” said Alexandra Bowie, a spokeswoman for the US concern. “The 293T cells that we use today cannot be considered embryonic tissue, and we generally do not use embryonic tissue,” he said.
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