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Smallpox vaccine uses fetal cell line: Some Americans may refuse shot, worsening potential outbreak
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Sunday, November 18, 2001 | By Jon Dougherty

Posted on 11/18/2001 3:17:00 AM PST by JohnHuang2

WND Exclusive
BIOLOGICAL WAR-FEAR
Smallpox vaccine uses
fetal cell line

Some Americans may refuse shot, worsening potential outbreak


By Jon Dougherty
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

A company that would use a stem-cell line from an aborted fetus to manufacture a new smallpox vaccine is one of only a few firms being considered for a major new government contract despite concerns that the use of such tissues could lead many people to refuse the shots, thereby worsening any outbreak.

The company, Acambis PLC of England, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, has already been contracted by the federal government to make 40 million doses of the vaccine.

According to the Washington Post, that contract – signed last year – is set to increase to 54 million doses. But, as a part of a plan being formulated by the Department of Health and Human Services, the number could rise by as much as 250 million doses under new requirements to manufacture enough vaccine for every man, woman and child in the country.

Three other companies besides Acambis are being considered for the new vaccine contract, the Post reported.

The department announced earlier this month that the agency is soliciting bids for the manufacture of a new smallpox vaccine. The current stockpile, at just 15 million doses, is far from adequate should terrorists release new strains of the disease in public, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said.

Officials have voiced new concerns over intentional smallpox outbreaks in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the outbreak of anthrax at various locations along the East Coast.

Meanwhile, health officials with the Food and Drug Administration say the method of manufacturing the old vaccine, called Dryvax, which was made by Wyeth using calf skin, is "no longer considered optimal." Instead, the agency says the new smallpox vaccine "will be prepared in MRC-5 cells" – a line of aborted fetal cells dating back to 1966 – because that method is more efficient.

"The MRC-5 line was developed … from lung tissue taken from a 14-week fetus aborted for psychiatric reasons from a 27-year-old physically healthy woman," said a description of the cell tissue by the Coriell Institute for Medical Research at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where the line is maintained. The institute further describes it as "normal human fetal lung fibroblast."

The new manufacturing method has concerned some pro-life groups, who argue that the use of aborted fetal tissue could cause pro-life supporters to refuse it, making any outbreak worse in terms of duration and mortality.

"If enough people refuse the vaccine, we may be faced with serious epidemic problems," said Debi Vinnege, executive director of Children of God For Life, an organization that monitors the use of aborted fetal tissue in the manufacture of vaccines.

"There is no reason to endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans when perfectly acceptable alternative methods may be used to cultivate the smallpox vaccine," she told WorldNetDaily.

Lenore Gelb, a spokeswoman for the FDA, said the use of the stem-cell line for vaccine production was not new, adding that it was not up to her agency to decide who should and should not receive the vaccine.

"The FDA doesn't have that role," she said.

Asked if she was concerned about a prolonged outbreak due to the refusal by some to take the vaccine, she said, "FDA approves a vaccine based on the 'safety and effective' [criteria]." She said "recommendations for who should get a vaccine" were up to the CDC.

Smallpox 'easily transmitted'

Vaccinations to prevent smallpox have not been required in the United States since 1972, says HHS, because it was largely eliminated as a threat in the United States.

Caused by a virus known as Variola major, smallpox "is considered one of the most dangerous potential biological weapons because it is easily transmitted from person to person and because few people carry full immunity to the virus," according to department documentation.

Although a worldwide immunization program eradicated the smallpox disease in 1977, small quantities of the smallpox virus still exist in two secure facilities in the United States and Russia, the government said.

"However, it is possible that unrecognized stores of smallpox virus exist elsewhere in the world," said an HHS assessment.

"Smallpox vaccine has proven to be highly effective in preventing infection. In unvaccinated people exposed to smallpox, the vaccine can lessen the severity of, or even prevent, illness if given within four days after exposure," said Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, a division of the HHS, in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee Nov. 2.

Nevertheless, there is obvious concern among experts that terrorist entities – as they have with anthrax – could eventually reintroduce smallpox into U.S. society. If that happens, some public health experts say extreme measures would be needed to combat the threat.

One such plan is already in the works. Last month, all 50 state governors were sent a copy of a proposal that, if passed into law, would grant each of them new authority to act in the event of a health emergency like a smallpox outbreak.

According to the report, the measure would allow governors – upon the declaration of a health emergency – to invoke the authority to order roads and airports closed, to quarantine entire cities, and to move people to holding facilities like sports stadiums, if need be, to protect the rest of the public from becoming infected.

"In tough times, you have to make tough decisions," Paul Jacobsen, assistant commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, told the Boston Herald Monday.

One of those "extreme measures" could be compulsory vaccination, some worry. Under the proposal, even those who philosophically disagree with the ingredients of the vaccine may, under extreme measures, be vaccinated against their will for the good of an entire community.

Nevertheless, April Bell, a spokeswoman for the CDC, told WorldNetDaily that the United States does not currently have a mandatory vaccination requirement. Also, she said that in the event of widespread infection, universal vaccination may not even be necessary.

Under the epidemiological concept of "herd immunity," Bell said, "you would vaccinate around the case. If some people refused to be vaccinated, you vaccinate those they were in contact with," thereby isolating the spread of the disease.

"That's how smallpox was eradicated in the first place," she said, adding that smallpox carries a relatively low – 30 percent – mortality rate.

Bell said the CDC had no position on the state emergency health powers legislation. However, according to Lawrence O. Gostin, director of the Center for Law and the Public's Health at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities, the author of the measure, the "act ensures a strong, effective and timely response to public health emergencies … without unduly interfering" with civil rights and liberties.

"Emergency health threats, including those caused by bioterrorism and epidemics, require the exercise of extraordinary government functions," he wrote in a preamble introduction to his 40-page "model" bill.

The bill was drafted in collaboration with the National Governor's Association, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Association of Attorneys General and the National Association of City and County Health Officers.


If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.



TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abortion; abortionlist; acambis; acambisplc; cdc; fetaltissue; michaeldobbs; nuke; smallpox; smallpoxvaccine; stemcells; vaccine
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Quote of the Day by atafak
1 posted on 11/18/2001 3:17:00 AM PST by JohnHuang2
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Comment #2 Removed by Moderator

To: JohnHuang2
I predicte only a handful would refuse the shot if there was a smallpox outbreak.
3 posted on 11/18/2001 4:04:22 AM PST by not-an-ostrich
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: not-an-ostrich
We better go kill a bunch more babies in case we need more vaccine than we thought. Perhaps satan thinks he's got the almost perfect "perpetual killing machine"...wanna live??...then you better kill!
6 posted on 11/18/2001 5:32:16 AM PST by Russ7
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To: Zordas
The 'model,' appears to be a FEMA-type authorization - in waiting. With a 'scare,' the government could do the concentration camp trick before anybody could stop it.

For this scheme to work, the government had better be resigned to both killing many civilians and suffering massive military losses, remember we are an armed population.

7 posted on 11/18/2001 5:44:20 AM PST by TightSqueeze
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To: TightSqueeze
It's as if TPTB figure that if the "religous zealots" get scared enough, they will go along with killing babies to save their hides. I don't think so. This would be a huge mistake in judgement. I say dump the vaccines made from embryonic stem cells and try something else...before it's too late.
8 posted on 11/18/2001 5:50:01 AM PST by Russ7
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: JohnHuang2; candyman34; not-an-ostrich; Russ7; TightSqueeze; Zordas; Dukie; OWK; joanie-f...
Talk about a "mark of the beast"!

I will refuse to take such a vaccine. I will not use the innocent blood of babies to prolong my life. To do so, would mark me, it would say something about my moral fiber, my morality, my humanity and the state of my soul that I will NEVER consciously allow to be said. I would rather die first.

If that makes me a religious zealot, or an extremeist ... so be it.

In war, when attacking the enemy, some innocents get killed. There are some who will try and equate this to what is being discussed here. There is no equivalence. To kill innocents in the name of research is akin to what the Nazi's and every other Godless despot does. Lives spent that way are on the head of the society that allows for and benefits from said research.

To have civilians accidently killed in war is part of the horrendous cost of defeating a protaganist and those life's are on the head of the protaganist.

To defeat entire people's in an all-out war, where the population is willing supporting the war effort (like in Germany or Japan in World War II). Is part of the horror of all out, unrestricted war. Again ... no equivalence to this madness discussed here.

... and again, I would refuse, on pain of death, to take such a vaccine.

Each must decide for themselves.

10 posted on 11/18/2001 6:48:50 AM PST by Jeff Head
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To: Jeff Head
The decision is personal as you state. There are other non fetal sources available if they will use them and make the vaccine for those that prefer a non fetal type.

In the U.S. today the following vaccines are fetal derived with no other source available:


11 posted on 11/18/2001 7:02:55 AM PST by deport
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To: babylonian
Bump to this thread on gov't Kool-aid.
12 posted on 11/18/2001 1:00:22 PM PST by 2sheep
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To: babylonian
Bump to this thread on gov't Kool-aid.
13 posted on 11/18/2001 1:00:54 PM PST by 2sheep
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To: Russ7
>"The MRC-5 line was developed … from lung tissue taken from a 14-week fetus aborted for psychiatric reasons..."

The baby was aborted for psychiatric reasons. Apparently, psychiatrists interviewed the fetus and figured that the kid was just to wacko to contribute to society...

Actually, of course, this whole thing is just too disgusting to make jokes about, but when I saw that wording in the story, I couldn't resisit.

Mark W.

14 posted on 11/18/2001 1:13:28 PM PST by MarkWar
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To: deport; Jeff Head
>In the U.S. today the following vaccines are fetal derived with no other source available...

I didn't know that. This is kind of terrifying.

1) A couple of generations ago, there was lots of research on "RNA memory" -- which speculated that memory was stored in some cellular manner throughout an organism's body. There were lots of experiments, but nothing definitive, although the "general belief" of the scientific community turned against the idea.

2) There _continue_ to be anecdotal reports in general literature that people who get tissue transplantsof various kinds often report "false" memories that "feel" as if they come from the tissue donors. (These are usually dismissed as adverse reactions to the anti-rejection drugs.)

3) Little more than a week ago, British science magazine New Scientist reported a fantastic story of Bizarre Chemical Discovery Gives Homeopathic Hint-- which describes how tiny amounts of a substance in a fluid may cause serious, strange changes to the fluid...

As if it weren't horrifying enough to use aborted children to create drug treatments, the reality seems to be that nobody really knows the actual effects of injecting people with processed chunks of other people.

I believe I would refuse such treatment. I'll bet, however, that in the event of any outbreak, people who refuse will be rounded up and dealt with very seriously.

Mark W.

15 posted on 11/18/2001 1:27:21 PM PST by MarkWar
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To: JohnHuang2
What ever happened to Cow Pox? Wouldn`t it grow much better in Bovine tissue, given the fact it is a disease of Bovine origin. Seems to me this decision is more political than scientific!
16 posted on 11/18/2001 2:24:40 PM PST by nomad
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To: MarkWar
I'm sure that if there were a serious outbreak of smallpox, anyone who refused vaccination would be forcibly vaccinated.
17 posted on 11/18/2001 2:53:42 PM PST by Zorobabel
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To: Zorobabel; MarkWar; deport
Then it would evolove into force on force.

At that point, the "need" to disarm the populace would drive the reaction.

As Travis McGee often says, my money is on the side with the 10 million hunting rifles. Force readiness and logistics are a real pain when there are no front lines.

Sorry ... but as I said earlier, I will not be forced to accept a vaccine or inocculation that is based on such research.

18 posted on 11/18/2001 3:09:56 PM PST by Jeff Head
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To: Zorobabel
"I'm sure that if there were a serious outbreak of smallpox, anyone who refused vaccination would be forcibly vaccinated."

"Forcibly" is the only way anyone is going to vaccinate me with fetal cell vaccine. While I would not hesitate to accept an organ transplant that came from a donor who generously chose to give life to others, I would never willingly accept something from someone who was killed so that their components could be harvested.

That goes for aborted babies (regardless of whether the body products were a direct or indirect reason for the abortion), or the victims of chinese "justice" who are executed for petty crimes, so that their organs can be harvested and marketed.

Sometimes this world is a frightening, disgusting place.

All that aside, I do not believe that GW Bush would go for a smallpox vaccine program that was based on fetal cells.

19 posted on 11/18/2001 3:10:18 PM PST by Don Joe
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To: Don Joe
Bro., looks like the contract has already been signed. Hopefully GW will cancel it, but given the current remarks about the need, I doubt it. I will not accept it for me or my family.

The company, Acambis PLC of England, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, has already been contracted by the federal government to make 40 million doses of the vaccine.

According to the Washington Post, that contract – signed last year – is set to increase to 54 million doses. But, as a part of a plan being formulated by the Department of Health and Human Services, the number could rise by as much as 250 million doses under new requirements to manufacture enough vaccine for every man, woman and child in the country.

Someone earlier said (I believe deport) that Chicnpox vaccines were based on the same. I can;t speak for current vaccinations, but I know when I wa vaccinated (many years ago) it wasn;t because abortions were illegal at the time. So there must be a way to develop iot (and the smallpox) vaccines without aborted fetal tissue because they were developed that way previously.

This really stinks and is a gross perversion of medical research and technology IMHO.

20 posted on 11/18/2001 3:20:12 PM PST by Jeff Head
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