Covid Vaccines & Abortion

The frontrunner covid vaccines used aborted cell lines in testing or production.123 This includes Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and others. (There is a possibility that the HEK293 cell line came from a miscarriage, although it is commonly believed to be from an abortion both in secular and Christian articles.) Vaccines which used these cell lines in production (like Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca) will inevitably have trace amounts of aborted cell line fragments in the final product, including DNA fragments.4 It is possible that the connection with abortion is stronger than what they admit today. I am alarmed at the murderous nature of these abortion doctors, and I believe Christians should refuse any covid vaccine linked to abortion on moral grounds alone.

The Connection with Abortion

Clearing Up Terminology

What is vaccine production vs. testing? Production is the making of the actual vaccine product. Testing is finding out whether the technology will work. Fact-checkers sometimes mislead readers with these terms. You may see claims that certain covid vaccines (like Moderna) do not use aborted cell lines at all in production (i.e., "culturing").5 This is true but misleading, since they used aborted cell lines in testing. Imagine a company manufacturing bullets. If they tested their product on live animals, they could nevertheless claim that they used no animals at all in the manufacture of the bullets. And of course, the bullets they sell would contain no traces of animal parts. This is the difference between production and testing.

What are aborted cell lines? Scientists take aborted tissue and then culture it to make cell lines. Thus, the cells they use for vaccines aren't the same exact ones taken from the aborted tissue;6 they are descendants of those original cells. We will discuss the moral implications of this later.

Some fact-checkers also claim that vaccines produced in aborted cell lines don't contain any "aborted fetal cells."7 Although they may not contain intact cells (scientists put it through a "purification" process), some residual chemial and DNA fragments do make it into the final product.48 Thus, their claim is misleading. It's like saying a cake, baked with a little applesauce as one of the ingredients, doesn't contain any "apples."

Information on Specific Vaccines

  • Moderna: The HEK293 cell line was used for testing.9
  • Pfizer: The HEK293 cell line was used for testing.10
  • AstraZeneca/Oxford: The HEK293 cell line was used for testing and production.11
  • Johnson & Johnson: The PER.C6 cell line was used throughout, including production.12

See the Lozier PDF for a more detailed chart.

"Humanized Mice" and Other Possible Abortion Connections

Humanized mice are lab mice containing human genes or tissue. With them, scientists can more accurately simulate human responses to diseases and treatments. Not all humanized mice are connected to abortion. Apparently, some mice are genetically engineered, and others have human tissue grafted which is not taken from abortion, such as tissue from a placental cord that is no longer needed.

However, some are what scientists call "BLT mice" (which stands for bone-marrow, liver, and thymus--I suspect they might use this term as a sick scientific pun on the common sandwich acronym for bacon, lettuce, and tomato). Scientists use aborted tissue to make these mice, which can be used to study human immune system behavior.131415 I imagine that these scientists would find them especially "useful" for studying the new technology of the Moderna and Pfizer's vaccines. In a document sent from Harvard defending "fetal tissue" use,16 researchers explain that they use aborted tissue for such mice, claiming this tissue is "superior" to adult or even miscarriage tissue. Immune grafts require bone marrow (which is where the immune system lives), and adult bone marrow would reject the mouse. Scientists must use tissue from late-term abortions, where the baby has developed sufficient bone marrow which is still young enough to be grafted without rejecting the mouse.

One paper states that BLT mice with humanized lungs would be "an idealized model" for researching covid vaccines and therapies,17 while yet another paper in Nature says mice with humanized immune systems (which would require bone marrow transplants, and a BLT mice paper is endnoted earlier) would be useful for studying covid vaccines.18 Oddly, one paper even suggested the possibility that covid itself may have originated through live tests with BLT-L mice with humanized lungs.19

Another 2018 article in CBN20 reports that one university in California "is required to use aborted baby body parts for research, according to a contract they have signed with the National Institutes of Health." This is connected to humanized mice experiments for HIV. Part of the purpose for this division of NIH, stated in the PDF linked in the article, is "supporting the development of vaccines and other prevention strategies", and so it is possible this work is connected to HIV vaccine research.

The undercover Planned Parenthood videos have shown us that aborted babies are being used more than we would think. The leading authority on vaccines, Dr. Plotkin, speaks of his work with vaccines for rubella, rabies, chicken pox, and others, and in just one study (in which he was listed as one of the authors), they used 76 aborted babies (see Appendix A). The point is that the connection between covid vaccines and abortion may well go beyond the publicly admitted connection to the aborted cell lines.

Answering Objections

Question: "What if the vaccine isn't encouraging any further abortion?"

The most popular argument for getting the vaccine is that it doesn't encourage any further abortion. In other words, scientists are using cell lines from decades-old abortions, and they don't need to "start over" with new abortions. But does that make it okay to use the vaccines?

First, I don't want to validate past abortions. Scientists are already claiming that "fetal tissue research" (aborted cell lines are one form of this) has "saved the lives of millions of people."21 They will surely say the same thing regarding these abortion-related covid vaccines. We cannot validate such a wicked narrative.

Second, how can we assume it doesn't promote further abortion? Scientists have already used the supposed "success" of this research in the past (including in the making of several vaccines) to demand that Congress continue funding further aborted tissue research!22 Worse, it is quite possible that covid vaccines are more deeply tied to abortion than they admit today. The undercover Planned Parenthood videos and discoveries of humanized mice make us wonder where the medical connection to abortion ends.

Third, I think this argument ignores the humanity of the babies killed. Hiding behind terms like "HEK293" and "PER.C6," these cell lines sound cold and impersonal. But what if the cell line came from a Jewish rabbi murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust? How could we take such a vaccine? Wouldn't we demand that they stop using something so evil and strange? Despite scientific naming, these cell lines come from baby boys and girls. Had they lived, as of now (2020/2021), the baby used for "HEK-293" would now be a 48-year-old woman, and the baby used for "PER.C6" would be a 35-year-old man.

Question: "Isn't using cell lines morally better than using original tissue?"

Cell lines are descended from the aborted baby's original tissue. Thus, some people claim that the vaccines don't use aborted "tissue," just cells descended from it. They claim that this separates the vaccines from the abortion to a large extent. But is this really true? I disagree. I believe that God considers using the cell line to be just as bad as using the original tissue.

First, the Bible talks about Abraham and Levi. While Abraham was still childless, he paid tithes to Melchisedec; and yet God considered Levi, the great-grandson of Abraham, to also have paid tithes through Abraham because "he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him." In other words, God was looking at the "cell line" of Abraham, through which Levi would be born. In the context of abortion, I think this means God considers using the cell line to be morally equivalent to using the original tissue.

Second, God gives the example of the sin of Adam. None of our cells are Adam's, but we are connected to his sin because we are in his cell line (Romans 5:14). Even though we are removed by thousands of years and hundreds of generations, we are no less sinful as a race than the humans before Noah's flood.

Third, the cells in our bodies replace themselves every seven years. But you are still the same person, because all of your cells are in your personal "cell line." God will reward and punish what we do in our body throughout our whole lives (II Corinthians 5:10). Marriage vows last until the death of the person, not the death of the exact cells of the husband and wife that existed when the wedding vows were made (Romans 7:1-3). For all of these reasons, I believe God considers a cell line to be morally equivalent to the original tissue.

Question: "Was HEK293 really from an abortion?"

The origin of the HEK293 cell line is not entirely clear, presumably because of lost documentation. This leads some to believe it could have been from a miscarriage (sometimes called "spontaneous abortion"), rather than from an abortion (sometimes called "elective abortion").

HEK293 is commonly believed to come from an (elective) abortion.23 Many Christian articles present it this way, even if they promote using the vaccines. Secular sources also refer to it as an "elective abortion."2425 As far as I know, this has not been denied, only questioned for lack of definitive documentation. In an unrelated attachment from Harvard to CNS news,26 which is supporting the use of aborted baby tissue in research, these scientists explain that in "Almost all" cases, tissue from miscarriages cannot be recovered in a usable state; and even if it can be, they claim that collecting tissue from an abortion is still "far superior." This makes it unlikely that any cell line used for vaccines, including HEK293, came from a miscarriage, at least according to these scientists.

But if scientists did use a miscarriage, this is also terrible. The bodies of humans are precious and should be treated with great respect. In the Bible, Rizpah protected the bodies of the wicked sons of Saul from vultures and wild animals (II Samuel 21:10). David honored her efforts in the later verses. Regarding the body of Saul himself, when he had died earlier in battle, the Bible says, "And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul; all the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days." If the dead bodies of an evil king and his wicked sons deserved such respect, how much more should the bodies of innocent babies be protected against demonic medical "vultures" who care nothing for God or the sanctity of life?

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe Christians should refuse the current frontrunner covid vaccines on the moral grounds alone, because of their connection with abortion. Our medical system and our land is defiled with innocent blood at the hands of abortion doctors and scientists (Numbers 35:33), and we are in danger of being severely cursed and punished by God. As Christians, let's fight against the demonic attack by the devil against unborn babies.

Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live ...27

Appendixes

Appendix A: Interview with Dr. Stanley Plotkin, MD

Dr. Plotkin is listed here as the world's leading authority on vaccines. https://youtu.be/RpwaWMe3sBQ, accessed 2020 December. Filmed January 11, 2018; 09:42, for divorce case in Detroit.

The interviewer's questions are in (italics parentheses), followed by Dr. Plotkin's responses in regular font.

(Have you ever worked on developing a vaccine that was eventually used by the public?) Yes. (Which ones?) Rubella, rotavirus, rabies ... I've made contributions here and there to anthrax, cytomegalovirus, varicella [chicken pox] ... (Your work related to vaccines, How many fetuses have been part of that work?) My own personal work? Two.

...

(Are you listed as an author on this article?) Yes. ... (How many fetuses were used in the study described in this article?) Quite a few. (This study involves 74 fetuses, correct?) I don't remember exactly how many. (Turn to page twelve of this study.) Seventy-six. (Seventy-six? And these fetuses were all three months or older when aborted, correct?) Yes. (And these were all normally developed fetuses, correct?) Yes. (What organs did you harvest from these fetuses?) Well I didn't personally harvest any. But a whole range of tissues were harvested by coworkers. (And were these pieces were then cut up into little pieces, right?) Yes. (And they were cultured?) Yes. ... (Including the lung of the fetuses?) Yes. (Including the skin?) Yes. (Kidney?) Yes. (Spleen?) Yes. (Heart?) Yes. (Tongue?) [Plotkin laughs] I don't recall, but probably yes.

...

(In your entire career, how many fetuses have you worked with?) Well I don't remember the exact number, but quite a few, when we were studying them originally, before we decided to use them to make vaccines. (Do you have any sense? I mean this one study had 76. How many other studies did you have that you used aborted fetuses for?) Oh, I don't remember how many. (Are you aware that one of the objections to vaccination by the plaintiff in this case is the inclusion of aborted fetal tissue in the development of vaccines, and the fact that it's actually a part of the ingredients of vaccines?) Yeah, I'm aware of those objections. The Catholic church has actually issued a document on that which says that individuals who need the vaccines who receive the vaccines regardless of the fact, I think it implies that I am the individual who will go to hell because of the use of aborted tissues, which I am glad to do. ([Interviewer nervously laughs] Okay, do you know if the mother is Catholic?) I have no idea. (Do you take issue with religious beliefs?) Yes. (You have said that, "Vaccination is always under attack by religious zealots who believe that the will of God includes death and disease"?) Yes. (Do you stand by that statement?) I absolutely do. (Are you an atheist?) Yes.

References

Bibliography

I disagree with many of these articles, but they provide the documentation linking the covid vaccines to abortion, as well as providing evidence for other statements on this page.

  • Lozier PDF; accessed 2020 December 14; updated 2020 December 3. I've found this to be a helpful resource especially for directing readers to the technical research articles confirming the links to abortion (you can search for the cell line names, such as "HEK", "293", or "PER.C6").
  • Catholic memo, acessed 2020 December; written 2020 November 20
  • TGC (The Gospel Coalition), accessed 2020 December, written 2020 November 18
  • ScienceMag, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 June 5
  • Personhood, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 November 17
  • The Public Discourse (TPD), accessed 2020 December, written 2020 December 8. Three "Christian ethicists" encourage getting the vaccine despite connection to abortion.
  • Southern Baptist Convention's "Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission" (ERLC), accessed 2020 December, written 2020 December 20. According to the article, while a vaccine with no tie to abortion should be preferred if available, they claim that "Christians are not morally culpable if they use treatments and vaccines that were developed using such cells, even if the cells originated in aborted fetal tissue."
  • mRNA-1273 Study, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 August 5. This is the approach used by the Moderna covid vaccine.
  • CNS Humanized Mice Article, accessed 2020 December, written 2019 June 21 by Terry Jeffrey of CNS. This discusses the use of humanized mice and abortion in medical research.
  • Harvard CNS Attachment #1, accessed 2020 December; sent as attachment from Harvard to CNS news, documented by Terence Jeffrey on 2019 June 21, in an e-mail sent to CNS on May 20 (attachment 1).
  • Harvard CNS Attachment #2, accessed 2020 December; sent as attachment #2 to e-mail referenced in previous entry.

References

(Again, I disagree with many of these articles, and the quotes here are meant only to provide the documentation for statements made earlier on this page.)

  1. From the Catholic memo: "They are not completely free from any connection to abortion, however, as both Pfizer and Moderna made use of a tainted cell line for one of the confirmatory lab tests of their products. There is thus a connection, but it is relatively remote." ↩

  2. From The Gospel Coalition article (TGC): "In addition to the use on REGN-COV2, at least five of the candidate COVID-19 vaccines being developed in America use cells from HEK293T cells or PER.C6, a cell line from developed from retinal cells from an 18-week-old fetus aborted in 1985. The vaccines by Pfizera and Moderna used HEK293T cells in the testing process." ↩

  3. Public Discourse: "No abortions occurred in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines. Nor is it certain the original abortions from which the cell lines were initially established were performed for the sake of research or developing vaccines. The cell lines involved in developing and confirming the viability of COVID-19 vaccines were used as a result of previous abortions. They were not the cause of any new abortion." ↩

  4. From Children's Hospital of Philadelpha, "Vaccine Ingredients — DNA", https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-ingredients/dna, accessed 2021 January: "Some people wonder whether the vaccines made using human embryo cells (chickenpox, rubella, hepatitis A, and one version of the rabies vaccine) could cause harm if the DNA from the embryo cells “mixes” with the vaccine recipient’s DNA. This is not likely to happen: / Stability of DNA - Because DNA is not stable when exposed to certain chemicals, much of it is destroyed in the process of making the vaccine. Therefore, the amount of human DNA in the final vaccine preparation is minimal (trillionths of a gram) and highly fragmented. Because the DNA is fragmented, it cannot possibly create a whole protein that could be harmful. / Opportunity – DNA from the vaccine is not able to incorporate itself into cellular DNA. In fact, if this could be accomplished, gene therapy would be much easier than it has been." (The references they give focus on the risk of cancer, stating it is not a risk; but the point here is that some of the DNA fragments and other chemical fragments from the aborted cell lines do indeed make it into the final vaccine.) ↩ ↩

  5. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/moderna-covid-vaccine-did-not-use-fetal-cells/, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 November 16, titled "Moderna COVID Vaccine Did Not Use Fetal Cells"; quote: "Some pro-lifers declare that they will not accept a vaccine that uses fetal cell lines taken from aborted fetuses decades ago to culture the virus. Moderna’s new vaccine did not. It is an RNA product..." (What this article does not say is that Moderna did use aborted cell lines in their testing of the vaccine, but not in "culturing"--i.e., to actually produce the vaccine itself.) ↩

  6. From Christian Post, "Francis Collins says COVID-19 vaccines don't use 'fresh' fetal tissue: 'Absolutely not the case'" by Brandon Showalter, published 2021 January 20; https://www.christianpost.com/news/francis-collins-covid-19-vaccines-christian-perspective.html, accessed 2021 January: "'No current fetal tissue is being used for any of these vaccines,' Collins said, noting that he is often asked about what Christians should do in order to maintain a consistent pro-life ethic. ... The vaccines are made with synthetic RNA and lipids but no cell lines, he continued. The cell lines have been used to evaluate whether vaccines are safe and effective. He assured that the lines have not been involved in the production of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. ... 'I think people should be fairly reassured, though, because there's a lot of suggestion that this is utilizing fresh fetal tissue right now. That is absolutely not the case,' he stressed." (He does admit that cell lines coming from aborted baby tissue was used to test the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, just not "fresh fetal tissue".) ↩

  7. From Snopes.com "Does AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 Vaccine Contain Aborted Fetal Cells?" by Alex Kasprak, published 2020 December 02; https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-fetal/, accessed 2021 January: "Although this engineered virus was grown in human-derived cells, those cells serve only as a growth medium and are not part of the final vaccine product. While extremely low concentrations of chemicals derived from the human cell line may be present in virtually undetectable amounts, that material is too broken down to be recognizable as human tissue. After the modified virus infects these cellular factories, they reproduce until the cells burst — a process that literally destroys the HEK293 cells. The viral particles are removed from what is left of the HEK293 cell detritus through a rigorous purification process involving both chemical purification and high-tech centrifugation." (I.e., the vaccines don't contain aborted tissue or complete cells, but they do contain trace fragments of those cells.) ↩

  8. From PDA journal of pharmaceutical science and technology, "Establishing acceptable limits of residual DNA" by Harry Yang, Mar-Apr 2013;67(2):155-63. doi: 10.5731/pdajpst.2013.00910; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23569076/, accessed 2021 January: from Lab abstract: "Medicines produced from biological sources like cells can contain DNA. It is not clear what health risk the DNA can pose in the product recipients, but often manufacturing can be designed to minimize the risk by reducing the levels of DNA. This article describes new methods for calculating the health risks." ↩

  9. mRNA-1273 Study: "MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV protein expression and purification / Vectors encoding MERS-CoV S-2P1 and SARS-CoV S-2P23 were generated as previously described with the following small amendments. Proteins were expressed by transfection of plasmids into Expi293 cells using Expifectamine transfection reagent (ThermoFisher) in suspension at 37 °C for 4–5 days. Transfected cell culture supernatants were collected, buffer exchanged into 1× PBS, and protein was purified using Strep-Tactin resin (IBA). For proteins used for mouse inoculations, tags were cleaved with addition of HRV3C protease (ThermoFisher) (1% wt/wt) overnight at 4 °C. Size-exclusion chromatography using Superose 6 Increase column (GE Healthcare) yielded final purified protein." (Note that Expi293 cells are based on the HEK-293 cell line, per https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/A14527#/A14527; "293" is another term for HEK-293, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEK_293_cells.) ↩

  10. Referenced in Lozier PDF: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.08.280818v1.full, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 September 8: "BNT162b2 RNA in vitro transcribed by T7 polymerase from a plasmid DNA template has a single, sharp-peak microfluidic capillary electrophoresis profile, consistent with its calculated length of 4,283 nucleotides, indicating purity and integrity (Fig. 1b). When HEK293T/17 cells were incubated with BNT162b2 (which is LNP-formulated) or with BNT162b2 RNA mixed with a transfection reagent, robust expression of P2 S was detectable by flow cytometry..."; "Human embryonic kidney (HEK)293T/17 and Vero 76 cells (both ATCC) were cultured in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) with GlutaMAX™ (Gibco) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS [Sigma-Aldrich]). Cell lines were tested for mycoplasma contamination after receipt, before expansion and cryopreservation." The HEK293 cell lines are mentioned several times in this article. ↩

  11. Referenced in Lozier PDF, from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2608-y, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 July 30: "[Under 'Generation of vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19'] The virus was rescued and propagated in T-Rex HEK293 cells (Invitrogen) in which antigen expression during virus propagation is repressed. ... [Under 'Virus neutralization assay using ChAdOx1'] In brief, GripTite MSR 293 cells [also based on HEK293] (Invitrogen, R795-07) were infected with serially diluted serum in phenol-red-free DMEM (Life Technologies, 31053028) and the ChAdOx1-SEAP reporter virus in a 1:1 mixture for 1 h before replacing with phenol-red-free DMEM containing 10% FBS for 24 h." ↩

  12. Referenced in Lozier PDF; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1070-6, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 September 3: "Ad26 vectors were constructed with two variants of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein sequence (Wuhan/WIV04/2019; GenBank MN996528.1). Sequences were codon optimized and synthesized. Replication-incompetent, E1/E3-deleted Ad26-vectors19 were produced in PER.C6.TetR cells using a plasmid containing the full Ad26 vector genome and a transgene expression cassette. Sham controls included Ad26-Empty vectors. Vectors were sequenced and tested for expression before use." ↩

  13. CBN video interview, accessed 2020 December, published 2018 August 22; Terry Jeffrey of CNS news discusses with CBN the humanized mice with bone marrow transplants, and how this bone marrow would have to be from late-term aborted babies. ↩

  14. See CNS Humanized Mice Article, accessed 2020 December, written 2019 June 21 by Terry Jeffrey of CNS. The payment schedule for these so-called "BLT mice" (humanized with bone marrow, liver, thymus) is linked in the article. ↩

  15. Correspondence between CNS and Harvard regarding humanized mice, accessed 2020 December, written 2019 June 21 by Terence P. Jeffrey. This has a lot of documentation of back-and-forth with Harvard and NIH. ↩

  16. From Harvard CNS Attachment #1; the title at the beggining of the document is, "Why is human fetal material needed for research?" "... The field of vaccine R&D is probably the best known example of how fetal material provides an invaluable resource to scientific and medical progress; most recently in work seeking to better understand and combat the spread of Zika virus, just as it did chicken pox and polio, among others. But, there are many avenues of active biomedical research beyond vaccine development and a number of those areas likewise benefit significantly from the use of fetal material; in many cases the use of fetal material is the only effective approach. Why, despite the availability of modern tools and methods, including the use of embryonic and “reprogrammed” stem cells, does fetal tissue remain needed? The most obvious answer is rather straightforward: nature is far better at making tissues and organs than scientists are. ... In addition, we use fetal blood- and immune system-forming tissue to study the human immune response. This involves replacing the mouse immune system with a human immune system. Mice that have human immune systems are an invaluable scientific resource, but these mice are engineered to this condition only by means of the use of human fetal material. These mice allow us to model and better understand the auto-immune attack that leads to type I diabetes, among other diseases. This works by combining human immune and insulinproducing cells in a living system (the mouse). Similar approaches are being used to learn how to make other transplantable cells and tissue “invisible” to immune system attack so that they might serve as “universal donor” stem cells for use in a wide variety of different transplantation strategies. Here, the use of fetal blood- and immune system-forming cells transplanted into mice allows the “universal donor” cells and tissues to be tested for their ability to resist rejection by a human immune system. In these experiments the use of fetal blood-forming material is far superior to other sources such as adult bone marrow or even cord blood. Better research leads to better therapies." ↩

  17. From Virulence. 2020; 11(1): 486–488 "Mice with humanized-lungs and immune system - an idealized model for COVID-19 and other respiratory illness" by Sujit Pujhari and Jason L Rasgon, published online 2020 May 20; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7250318/, accessed 2021 January: "Researchers around the globe are desperately searching for an animal model for evaluating potential therapeutics and vaccine candidates for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiological agent responsible for COVID-19, a respiratory illness currently causing a global pandemic. ... Since respiratory infectious diseases are continuously on the rise, we believe that it is a good time to revisit the ethical considerations of humanizing mice with human organs – especially a mouse with human-like lungs." (Later in this paper, they said BLT mice were infected with pathogens like "MERS-CoV, RSV...HCMV, ZIKA, and Mycobacterium bovis BCG", but covid is not listed.) ↩

  18. From Nature, 586, pages509–515(2020); "Animal models for COVID-19" by Muñoz-Fontela, C., Dowling, W.E., Funnell, S.G.P. et al., published 2020 September 23; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2787-6, accessed 2021 January: "Severely immunodeficient mice transplanted with human immune cells have widely been used to study human-specific viral infections[24,25], and the combination of human immune system and ACE2 expression could help to further explore the efficacy of vaccines and therapies —in particular, those that modulate human immune cells." ↩

  19. From BioEssays, "The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory origin" by Rossana Segreto and Yuri Deigin, published 2020 November 17; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202000240, accessed 2021 January: "Nevertheless, while it is true that O‐linked glycans are much more likely to arise under immune selection, they could be added in the lab through site‐directed mutagenesis[56] or arise in the course of in vivo experiments, for example, in BLT‐L mice with human lung implants and autologous human immune system[57] or in mice expressing the hACE2 receptor.[31] To overcome problems of bat CoV isolation, experiments based on direct inoculation of bat CoV in suckling rats have been carried out.[58] Humanized mice, ferrets, primates and/or other animals with similar ACE2 conformation could have all been used for serial passage experiments, as described in detail by Sirotkin and Sirotkin." ↩

  20. https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/november/ucsf-admits-to-using-aborted-baby-body-parts-to-research-hiv, accessed 2020 December, written 2018 November 9. ↩

  21. From Harvard CNS Attachment #2, accessed 2020 December, written 2018 September 10 to Congress by many medical associations and colleges, including Harvard and Yale; "[Title:] Fetal tissue research advances science, improves human health, and saves lives / Fetal tissue research has been critical for scientific and medical advances that have saved the lives of millions of people; including the development of vaccines against polio, rubella, measles, chickenpox, adenovirus, rabies; and treatments for debilitating diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, cystic fibrosis, and hemophilia. / It has been incorrectly stated that other cells can be used to replace fetal tissue in biomedical research. In fact, cells in fetal tissue have unique and valuable properties that often cannot be replaced by other cell types. Cells from fetal tissue are more flexible and less specialized than cells from adult tissue and can be more readily grown in culture. This is part of the reason why fetal tissue is used in the generation of many of the vaccines made today." ↩

  22. From Harvard CNS Attachment #2, the letter begins: "On behalf of the millions of patients throughout the nation and around the world, as well as the scientific and medical communities dedicated to advancing human health, the undersigned organizations and institutions write to express our collective and strong opposition to restrictions that would further impede the use of federal funding for fetal tissue research. If enacted, the proposed prohibition would severely obstruct research that is necessary for the development of new treatments for a wide range of serious diseases. ... Fetal tissue research has been critical for scientific and medical advances that have saved the lives of millions of people; including the development of vaccines against polio, rubella, measles, chickenpox, adenovirus, rabies; ..." ↩

  23. From https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/05/63752/, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 May 26: "Though HEK293 is commonly believed to have been obtained from an aborted human fetus..." Previously, "Because the British COVID-19 vaccine [i.e., Oxford vaccine, which used HEK293] was developed using human fetal cells commonly believed to have been obtained from an elective abortion." ↩

  24. From https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/11/no-cells-from-aborted-fetus-are-in-covid-19-vaccines-that-rumor-is-patently-false.html, accessed 2020 December, written 2020 November 22: "According to the University of Oxford development team, the original Human Embryonic Kidney [HEK] 293 cells were taken from the kidney of an aborted fetus in 1973, but the cells used now are clones of the original cells." ↩

  25. From https://www.health.nd.gov/sites/www/files/documents/COVID%20Vaccine%20Page/COVID-19%20Vaccine%20Fetal%20Cell%20Handout.pdf, accessed 2020 December (no written date listed): "Historical fetal cell lines were derived in the 1960’s [sic, I think they meant 1980's] and 1970’s from two elective abortions that were not performed for the purpose of vaccine development. ... [HEK-293 and PER.C6 are the two listed] ... Any vaccine that relies on these historic cell lines will not require new abortions." ↩

  26. From Harvard CNS attachment #1: "If human fetal tissue is needed, why can it not be obtained from miscarriages instead of abortion? Here, timing is very important. Almost all miscarriages happen at home or in locations in which fetal material is not recovered and, importantly, preserved in a usable state. Just as obtaining tissue during a scheduled surgery or an in-hospital autopsy soon after death provides tissue that is untainted by decay relative to obtaining those same tissues from the morgue or a funeral home, obtaining fetal material from elective pregnancy termination is far superior to obtaining whatever material might be recoverable following spontaneous miscarriage, even assuming a mechanism existed for the collection of such material." ↩

  27. Also, Jeremiah 1:5: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." ↩