Research Using Fetal Tissue

Coach is Right ^ | 8/18/15 | Michael D. Shaw

[Oldpuppymax]

What better follow-up to the earlier story on harvesting the tissue? As mentioned in that article, fetal tissue has been harvested for medical research for years. Even before abortion was legalized, other sources were tapped, and according to an article by AP science writer Malcolm Ritter, this practice dates back to the 1930s.

Ritter, and many others, like to invoke the 1954 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. As Ritter puts it, “The 1954 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded for work with fetal tissue that led to developing a vaccine against polio.” Not so fast…

According to the Nobel Foundation, that particular prize was awarded jointly to John Franklin Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller, and Frederick Chapman Robbins “for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue.” Indeed, many types of tissue were used besides human embryonic tissue, and the famous Salk vaccine itself was cultured in monkey kidney tissue.

Beware, then, of intentionally misleading statements that are circulating such as: “Research on fetal tissue has yielded some major discoveries: The polio vaccine was derived from cultured fetal kidney cells.” Usually, this segues into a list of diseases in which research with fetal cells is ongoing, such as AIDS, Parkinson’s, and muscular dystrophy. Conspicuously absent, though, are any useful findings—not to mention breakthrough therapies.

A more accurate (and persuasive) presentation by Ritter would have focused on certain vaccines which are cultured in human cell lines, such as WI-38 and MRC-5. The WI-38 cell line was developed in July, 1962 from lung tissue taken from a therapeutically aborted fetus of about three months gestational age. The MRC-5 cell line was developed in September, 1966...

[bgill]

Remember when companies were so proud to announce they weren’t using cute furry bunnies for research anymore.