Free Republic

Question Do the COVID-19 vaccines contain aborted fetal cells? Answer from infectious diseases expert James Lawler, MD No, the COVID-19 vaccines do not contain any aborted fetal cells. However, Pfizer and Moderna did perform confirmation tests (to ensure the vaccines work) using fetal cell lines. But it's important to have the full context: Fetal cell lines are not the same as fetal tissue. Fetal cell lines are cells that grow in a laboratory. They descend from cells taken from elective abortions in the 1970s and 1980s. Those individual cells from the 1970s and 1980s have since multiplied into many new...

..... For pro-life Americans, however, there remains the serious ethical concern over the use of cells harvested from aborted fetuses in testing and developing the various coronavirus vaccines. How is one to make a moral judgment in weighing the cost of taking one of these two vaccines against the cost of waiting for the release of others in which fetal cell lines played no role at all? Neither of the two pro-life advocates I spoke with on the topic — Dr. Joseph Meaney, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, or Dr. Tara Sander Lee, a senior fellow at the...

The new vaccine has a small piece of COVID-19 genetic material (messenger RNA) that 'instructs' cells in the human body 'to make the virus’s distinctive "spike" protein.' WASHINGTON, D.C., December 19, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The Unites States Food and Drug Administration has authorized the emergency use of a second COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, yesterday. Like the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine approved for use on December 10, the Moderna vaccine uses messenger RNA. The EUA comes as civil liberties advocates around the world raise concern over the possibility of “COVID passports”...

As the lockdown continues across the world, pharmaceutical companies are accelerating their efforts to provide a vaccine to prevent the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, Moderna, the company which has gained prominence in news headlines for developing Mrna-1273 vaccine to fight the disease, uses cells of aborted babies. Although alternatives exist which could be considered morally acceptable, they are not getting as much coverage as Moderna’s vaccine work. Suspicions about the vaccine were raised after checking Moderna’s patents and in particular, the use of the Spike (S) protein. The idea behind using this Spike protein in a vaccine with messenger...

A pro-life group that monitors the use of cells from babies victimized by abortions is today highlighting a biotech company, Senomyx, which it says produces artificial flavor enhancers using aborted fetal cell lines to test their products. The group Children of God for Life is calling for a public boycott of major food companies partnering with Senomyx. Debi Vinnedge, the director of the pro-life organization, tells LifeNews.com today that, in 2010, her group wrote to Senomyx CEO Kent Snyder and pointed out that moral options for testing their food additives could and should be used. But when Senomyx ignored her...

Dr. Leon R. Kass, the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago and former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics under former President George W. Bush, has written a report entitled “The Meaning of Life – In the Laboratory”. Kass discusses the morality surrounding the US government’s funding of “research on human embryonic stem cells, cells derived from early embryos produced by in vitro fertilization in assisted-reproduction clinics.” According to the report, the use of human embryos is justified by the advancements of science which demands that...

LARGO, Florida, July 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A biomedical firm that uses fetal cell lines in flavor technology has removed from its website the names of organizations that use their products, according to the pro-life group Children of God for Life (COGFL). Senomyx has been called out by the organization for using HEK-293 (human embryonic kidney) cells in the research and development of their artificial flavor enhancers, despite a pro-life consumer backlash. Among Senomyx’s partnering companies is PepsiCo, which has been targeted for boycott based on its use of the flavor technology. In a recent response to customer letters, PepsiCo...

I have received a few requests from pro-lifers like Vicki:Can you provide some clarity to the Pepsi/cells from aborted babies controversy.  I cannot sort out whether this is valid or not. Yes and NoBottom line: There are no aborted embryonic or fetal cells in any of PepsiCo’s final products.But: Aborted cells are used in the development of artificial flavor enhancers by biotech company Senomyx, with which PepsiCo signed a four-year, $30 million agreement in 2010 for research and development. No Pepsi products containing Senonymx flavor enhancers should be expected until 2013.Senomyx’s disputed cell line is HEK-293, derived from the kidney...

Imagine an insect repellant that not only is thousands of times more effective than DEET -- the active ingredient in most commercial mosquito repellants -- but also works against all types of insects, including flies, moths and ants. That possibility has been created by the discovery of a new class of insect repellant made in the laboratory of Vanderbilt Professor of Biological Sciences and Pharmacology Laurence Zwiebel and reported this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "It wasn't something we set out to find," said David Rinker, a graduate student who...

Pro-Life Groups: Boycott Pepsi for Using Aborted Fetal Cell Lines Washington, DC -- Dozens of pro-life groups are calling on pro-life Americans to boycott PepsiCo because it has contracted with a company that uses fetal cells from babies victimized by abortions to test and produce artificial flavor enhancers. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/25/pro-life-groups-boycott-pepsi-for-using-aborted-fetal-cell-lines/