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“It is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that were developed or manufactured using cell lines from aborted fetuses,” the Vatican announced Monday. This raised a number of questions: Why and for which vaccines are these cell lines used? Has the church changed its mind because of the crown pandemic? A short review.
Cell lines from aborted fetuses, what?
Actually, there are several cell lines derived from aborted fetuses that have been used in research for decades. The WI-38 cell line, for example, comes from a fetus that was aborted in Sweden in 1962. The MRC-5 cell line, also from a fetus aborted in the 1960s. The abortions were not for research purposes but for personal motives. The terminations were legal.
Cell lines have been used in laboratories for decades, among other things to grow and research viruses in them, because that requires host cells. Viruses cannot multiply without cells to attack them. Especially for vaccines containing inactivated viruses, cells are needed in which pathogens can be produced on a large scale.
Cell lines are cells of a certain type of tissue that can be preserved and grown in the laboratory for long periods of time. They often return to a single cell. WI-38 and MRC-5 are called fibroblasts, that is, cells of connective tissue. Cells cannot divide and multiply indefinitely in the laboratory, but only age after 40 to 60 cell divisions; this value is named after the developer of WI-38 cell lines, Leonard Hayflick, as the Hayflick limit. But this also means that a few cells can become many, many, and you can still work with these cell lines today and for longer.
Before using human cells, the researchers used cells from monkeys. However, they often contained other viruses, posing a concern for vaccine safety. Nor can it take any cell, because viruses cannot multiply well in all of them.
The polio vaccine, launched in 1963, was the first vaccine produced using the WI-38 cell line. Among other things, the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines that were approved in the 1960s also use this cell line. A few years ago, two researchers, one of them Leonard Hayflick himself, estimated that vaccines using WI-38 in development or production have prevented about 4.5 billion diseases and saved 10.3 million lives.
And what does the Catholic Church say about it?
The Catholic Church has a clear position on abortion, that is why vaccines that are linked to production or development are a moral problem. So, can believers get vaccinated even if they refuse abortion?
As early as 2005, the Pontifical Academy for Life published moral reflections on these vaccines. At that time it was mainly rubella vaccines. The Church emphasized that it believes it is very important to develop vaccines without the use of these cell lines. But if there is no alternative, it is legal to protect yourself with these vaccines. Rubella is particularly dangerous during pregnancy; If a pregnant woman is infected, it can lead to malformations or miscarriage.
The church has not changed its stance on vaccines against the corona pandemic, but is building on these earlier statements when it now writes: If no other vaccines are available, it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines. that have used cells from aborted fetuses to produce or develop. However, this does not mean that the use of the cell lines is morally approved.
In which Covid-19 vaccines are cell lines used?
According to a “Science” report, at least five of the Covid-19 vaccines use suitable cells. These include the preparation of AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, for which the first data from a phase III study are already available.
In four cases, the cells produced adenoviruses, which then serve as vectors for coronavirus proteins during vaccination. In the fifth case, the cells produced parts of the Sars-CoV-2 spike protein. The cells only serve as a kind of factory, they are no longer contained in the vaccine itself. Viruses or proteins are cleaned up before they enter the vaccine.
When asked by SPIEGEL, the company did not answer whether such cell lines were used in the development of Biontech’s vaccine. You couldn’t “send a statement in the short time available.” The US Catholic bishops, who recently released a statement on the matter, wrote that both Biontech and Moderna did not use these cell lines in the development and production of their vaccines, but did use HEK293 cells for a specific test. Its origin is also linked to an abortion that took place in the 1970s. The bishops write that although the two vaccines are not completely free of any connection to “morally reprehensible cell lines,” the connection is very distant.
