Why do anti-vax folks think that MRC-5 is the name of an electively aborted baby boy who is an ingredient in vaccines?
Since many think that we have a “moral obligation to protect the life and health” of our children and those around us, what does that make those folks who use propaganda to scare parents away from getting their kids vaccinated and protected.
Of course…
Is MRC-5 the Name of an Electively Aborted Baby Boy?
So what’s the real story?
MRC-5 is a line of human diploid cells that are used to make some vaccines.
“The second human cell line is MRC-5 (Medical Research Council 5) (human, lung, embryonic) (ATCC number CCL-171), with human lung fibroblasts coming from a 14 week male foetus aborted for “psychiatric reasons” from a 27 year old woman in the UK. MRC-5 was prepared and developed by J.P. Jacobs in 1966 (J.P. Jacobs et al, 1970).”
Vatican Statement on Vaccines Derived From Aborted Human Fetuses
And despite what the sign implies, vaccines do not contain aborted fetal tissue or fetal parts.
The original MRC-5 cells aren’t even involved in making vaccines anymore. The cells used today have been copied, over and over again.
They are descendant cells, which is why a common way to explain all of this is to say that vaccines are said to have a “distant association with abortion.”
“It should be obvious that vaccine use in these cases does not contribute directly to the practice of abortion since the reasons for having an abortion are not related to vaccine preparation.”
The Question of Parental Rights and Mandated Vaccinations
And even then, the cells are removed before the final vaccine is produced.
“Many Catholic experts concur that cooperation today is not really possible in an event that was over and done with many years ago. Because the abortion occurred long ago, and for reasons completely unrelated to vaccines, it is untenable to conclude that vaccine recipients today somehow cooperate in the original abortive event.”
Sadly, even as some of us are working to fight measles outbreaks, others are actually protesting against getting kids vaccinated and protected. And they have gotten someone to finance the making of hundreds of anti-vaccine signs.
Whether it is in a book, on Facebook or Twitter, or on a sign, don’t let this type of anti-vaccine misinformation keep you from vaccinating and protecting your kids.
Live Virus Vaccines Shed and Spread – while some live vaccines can shed, shedding is not the problem that these folks make it out to be, often going so far as describing a shedding season among other things
Vaccines Are Made With Aborted Fetal Cells – a cell line whose descendant cells has been copied over and over for over 50 years and are removed before the final vaccine is produced.
US Law Classifies Vaccines As Unavoidably Unsafe – but that legal term doesn’t in any way mean that vaccines are dangerous or extra risky!
“One is morally free to use the
vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The
reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to
vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the
vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral
obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those
around them.”
National Catholic Bioethics Center FAQ on the Use of Vaccines
As anti-vaccine folks get more attention because of the rise in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease, in addition to more folks getting vaccinated, we are seeing some of the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement get more vocal.
Are measles outbreaks a sign that the anti-vaccine movement is “winning?”
Meetings, dinners, rallies…
They are doing everything they can to get their misinformation and propaganda out so that you don’t vaccinate and protect your kids.
Ask 8 Questions Before You Skip a Vaccine
If you see any of these folks, ask them a few questions…
If you are worried about thimerosal and aluminum, then why are you worried about the MMR vaccine? Not only has it never contained thimerosal, as a live vaccine, but it has also never contained aluminum.
If better hygiene and sanitation got rid of vaccine-preventable diseases, then why didn’t it do it for all diseases at the same time? And why hasn’t it gotten rid of RSV, Ebola, Zika, HIV, Norovirus, and all of the diseases that we don’t have vaccines for?
If measles is so mild, then during the measles epidemics from 1989 to 1991 in the United States, why were 11,000 people hospitalized and why did 123 people die?
If you are concerned about vaccines that have a distant association with abortion, then why don’t you vaccinate your kids with all of the vaccines that don’t use WI-38 and MRC-5 cells lines?
If your arguments are so solid, then why do you need to keep moving the goalposts (it’s autoimmune diseases they are worried about now, not autism) and why are they so easy to refute (vaccines aren’t associated with autoimmune diseases either)?
Stanley Plotkin is typically described as “a prominent figure in the history of vaccinology, whose work on vaccine development has led to a significant reduction in morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases in the second part of 20th century. “
Why?
For one thing, he developed the rubella vaccine that we still use today.
He also worked on vaccines against CMV, polio, chicken pox, rabies, and rotavirus.
What Did Stanley Plotkin Say While He Was Under Oath?
That’s not why anti-vaccine folks are talking about him these days, or maybe it is…
Mostly, they are misinterpreting comments he made during a videotaped deposition.
“Lori Matheson is fighting her ex-husband, Michael Schmitt, for the right to decide if their two-year-old daughter should be vaccinated.”
Michigan anti-vaccination case to goes to court
A videotaped deposition in a case involving parents who disagreed about vaccinating their daughter…
Even though it isn’t his exact quote and anti-vaccine folks don’t give you the full context of what he was talking about, it is clear that Dr. Plotkin simply meant that you can’t prove a negative.
What do anti-vaccine folks think he said?
“I would say it is logically true that you cannot say, you cannot point to proof that it doesn’t cause autism. ”
“I could not say that as a, as a scientist or a logician. But I can say as a physician that, no, they do not cause autism, because as a physician, I have to take the whole body of scientific information into consideration when I make a recommendation for a child.”
Stanley Plotkin, M.D.
All he is saying is that you can’t definitively prove a negative.
Seth Mnookin explain it well – One of the different things in communicating the fact that there is no link is that science and English are not really the same language. So when a scientist says, “We have no evidence that there’s a link between vaccines and autism,” what they’re really saying is, “We are as positive as someone can humanly be that there’s no link.”
For example, just because I have never seen a black swan, I can’t use that as proof that black swans don’t exist somewhere. After all, I haven’t been everywhere.
“…scientists can be at a real disadvantage in this debate because they, by their nature, are careful in how they present their conclusions.”
Vaccines: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
What else do anti-vaccine folks have a problem with?
“After a detour to obtain credentials as a pediatrician, I returned to Wistarto work on rubella. Those years were fraught with advances and reverses, controversy and eventually vindication. The pandemic of CRS babies in 1964-65 was an important stimulus to research on the vaccine. “
Stanley Plotkin’s On the Occasion of the Presentation Of The 2002 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal
During the rubella epidemic of 1964-65, there were 12.5 million rubella virus infections, which “resulted in 11,250 therapeutic or spontaneous abortions, 2,100 neonatal deaths, and 20,000 infants born with congenital rubella syndrome.”
And that’s just in the United States.
The controversy?
“There were only two fetuses involved in making vaccines. When fetal strains of, fibroblast strains were first developed, I was involved in that work trying to characterize those cells; but they were not used to make vaccines.”
Stanley Plotkin, M.D.
It is well known (this isn’t some shocking truth as some are trying to push) that some vaccines are made with fetal embryo fibroblast cells (the WI-38 and MRC-5 cells) from cell lines that are derived (they can replicate infinitely) from two electively terminated pregnancies (abortions) in the 1960s.
Those two fetuses weren’t the only two fetuses ever used in research though, they were just the only ones used to actually make vaccines.
“Human diploid cell strains (HDCSs) are batches of cells that are currently used for different purposes, including culturing viruses for the manufacturing of vaccines”
A brief history of human diploid cell strains.
They had to get to the point where they knew how to make vaccines in human cell lines though and that’s what he is talking about in the deposition.
“Q. In any event, so we have 76 in this study. Would you approximate it’s been a few hundred fetuses?
A. Oh, no, I don’t think it was that many. Probably not many more than in this paper. And I should stipulate that we had nothing to do with the cause of the abortion.”
It took some experimentation to find the right kind of cells and the right methods, but ultimately, they found that fetal embryo fibroblast cells were the best to use to grow many viruses.
What about the other “issues” brought up in the deposition?
Did he experiment on orphans, people who were mentally handicapped, or those who lived in third world countries?
“I don’t remember specifically, but it’s possible. And, again, I repeat that in the 1960s, that was more or less common practice. I’ve since changed my mind. But those were, that was a long time ago.”
Stanley Plotkin, M.D.
Those were different times, but Dr. Plotkin’s vaccine studies weren’t unethical and weren’t like what was done at Willowbrook, in which children were purposely exposed to hepatitis, with the justification that most of them ended up getting it anyway.
Surprisingly, in the early 1970s, there was still some debate about the ethics of doing experiments on children, and as you can see, using ableist language to describe children with a disability.
And from those times, experts developed the rules for how things are now done.
Ironically, anti-vaccine folks are pushing this stuff about Plotkin, but don’t understand why leaving kids completely unvaccinated and unprotected in a study is unethical.
“One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.”
National Catholic Bioethics Center FAQ on the Use of Vaccines
Or why it’s immoral to push anti-vaccine propaganda or put others at risk to get a vaccine-preventable disease.
“Results indicate that the total number of cases of poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, adenovirus, rabies and hepatitis A averted or treated with WI-38 related vaccines was 198 million in the U.S. and 4.5 billion globally (720 million in Africa; 387 million in Latin America and the Caribbean; 2.7 billion in Asia; and 455 million in Europe). The total number of deaths averted from these same diseases was approximately 450,000 in the U.S., and 10.3 million globally (1.6 million in Africa; 886 thousand in Latin America and the Caribbean; 6.2 million in Asia; and 1.0 million in Europe).”
Olshansky et al on The Role of the WI-38 Cell Strain in Saving Lives and Reducing Morbidity
