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(HEK) cells, and PER.C6, developed in 1995 from the retinal tissue of has worked to impose restrictions on the use of
an eighteen-week-old fetus aborted in 1985. 10-12 Additionally, scientists fetal tissue in other research, it nonetheless sup-
in Wuhan, China developed a new aborted fetal cell line for vaccine ports government funding of Covid-19 vaccines
production in 2015, called Walvax-2. The 2015 cell line is derived from manufactured from existing fetal cell lines. Un-
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the lung tissue of a healthy three-month-old human female fetus who was der the White House’s Operation Warp Speed,
ultimately selected from among nine aborted fetuses. which aims to accelerate the development and
Hayflick is credited with discovering the number of times a normal approval of at least one Covid-19 vaccine by
human cell population will divide before cell division stops, a process January 2021, the administration committed
known as the “Hayflick limit.” Hayflick demonstrated that a healthy, $456 million dollars to the Johnson & Johnson
noncancerous, human fetal cell population will divide only between subsidiary Janssen Research & Development,
forty and sixty times in cell culture before aging and entering a phase Inc., which is using PER.C6 cells, and over
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called senescence. His finding overturned French Nobel laureate Alexis one billion dollars to the University of Oxford/
Carrel’s previous unconfirmed contention that normal cells can divide AstraZeneca partnership, which is using
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indefinitely (i.e., are “immortal”) under certain laboratory conditions. HEK-293 cells. This funding is committed
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Given the Hayflick limit, how are vaccine scientists able to obtain through the Biomedical Advanced Research
a “limitless supply” of fetal cells? The Children’s Hospital of Philadel- Development Authority (BARDA)—part of
phia (CHOP) explains how on its website, referring to something called the Department of Health and Human Services
“confluence” (the proportion of the cell growth surface covered by cells): (HHS)—which requires that each entity meet
specific milestones in order to receive funds.
The beauty of cell culture is that the cells grow to confluence in the Other companies using fetal cell lines for the
container to which they are seeded. Once they reach confluence, production of Covid-19 vaccines include Can-
they can be “split” into a series of additional containers which can Sino Biologics, Inc. and the Beijing Institute of
then be “split” when they reach confluence and so on. In this way Biotechnology, Altimmune and the University
the cell quantities expand exponentially. of Pittsburgh. 20
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A University of Pittsburgh researcher, An-
In short, fetal cell lines are “growth factories,” used for a wide drea Gambotto, views fetal cells as “more useful
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variety of viruses “that can be processed into inactivated whole virus, than ethically derived sources.” According to
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live attenuated, live-vector, split, subunit and recombinant vaccines.” 15 Gambotto, “Cultured [nonhuman] animal cells
can produce the same proteins, but they would
WHICH VACCINES? be decorated with different sugar molecules,
The list of approved vaccines in the U.S. that use human fetal tissue which—in the case of vaccines—runs the risk
in vaccine development includes vaccines on both the CDC’s pediatric of failing to evoke a robust and specific immune
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as well as adult recommended schedules: response.” Despite these claims, some compa-
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nies are developing Covid-19 vaccines that do
• Adenovirus type 4 and Type 7: WI-38 not rely on cell lines from aborted fetuses for
• Ebola: HEK-293, PER.C6 their manufacture. Alternatives presented as
• Hepatitis vaccines (hepatitis A; hepatitis A and B; and hepatitis more “ethical” include the use of pluripotent
A and typhoid): MRC-5 stem cells and tissue from placentas, umbilical
• Herpes zoster (shingles): WI-38, MRC-5 cords and amniotic fluid. In 2018, the Trump
• Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR-II), MMR plus varicella administration gave twenty million dollars
(MMRV), mumps and rubella (MR) and rubella: WI-38, MRC-5 in grants to develop alternatives to the use
• Polio and polio vaccines combined with diphtheria-tetanus- of “human fetal tissue obtained from elective
acellular pertussis and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib): abortions.” 21
MRC-5 The very first licensed vaccine made from
• Rabies: MRC-5 a human cell line was developed to prevent
• Smallpox: MRC-5 adenoviruses—a group of common viruses that
• Varicella (chickenpox): WI-38, MRC-5 can cause cold-like symptoms. This vaccine
was initially used by the military in the late
Would-be manufacturers racing to make a Covid-19 vaccine are 1960s. Other human-cell-line-reliant vaccines
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also using human fetal cell lines. Although the Trump administration soon followed, most famously the rubella vac-
74 Wise Traditions FALL 2020