Groups led by pro-life doctors intervene on the development of COVID-19 vaccines

The Catholic Medical Association and three other physician-led organizations said on December 2 the "rapid availability of effective vaccines" to combat COVID-19 is commendable.

However, they called for "guarantees of safety, efficacy and a full commitment to uncompromising ethical development" of vaccines from pharmaceutical companies. The four groups expressed concern about the use of "abortion-derived fetal cells" in the development of some vaccines.

The statement was released by the Catholic Medical Association, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Pediatricians, and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

The statement follows recent announcements from Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, and Moderna that their respective COVID-19 vaccines are 95% and 94,5% effective against the disease. The vaccines - which are both administered in two shots - are in production but companies are waiting for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to review the data and issue a desired emergency use authorization so that the vaccines can be widely distributed.

The four physician-led organizations acknowledged in their statement that while "it is true that animal-stage testing for these vaccines used abortion-derived fetal cells, commendably, it does not appear that the production methods used such cells," they said.

Shortly after the Pfizer and Moderna announcements of November 11 and 16, respectively, critics said the vaccines were produced using cells from aborted fetuses, leading to confusion about the "moral legitimacy" of using Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

But several Catholic leaders, including chairs of the doctrine and life committees of US bishops and an official from the National Catholic Bioethics Center, have said it is not immoral to be vaccinated with them because any connection they have to aborted fetal cell lines . it is extremely remote. These cells were used only in a test phase but not in the production phase.

In the case of AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, they are working together to produce a COVID-19 vaccine originating from cell lines originally derived from abortion, according to the Lozier Institute, a US-based pro-life organization, which has studied a number of vaccines in development.

“Fortunately, there are alternatives that do not violate this basic ethical and moral standard,” the Catholic Medical Association and other physician-led groups said in their joint statement.

They noted that in recent decades many of the more than 50 approved viral vaccines "did not use fetal cell lines derived from abortion for their production", but were developed with viruses "grown in the laboratory and harvested, then weakened or inactivated to act as a safe vaccine. "

Others such as the John Paul II Medical Research Institute use umbilical cord and adult stem cells. "These and other ethical approaches provide encouragement for the future, where no vaccine will violate the dignity of human life in their production," the groups said.

"It is deeply important to recognize vaccines that may have been developed with the use of fetal cell lines derived from abortion," the medical-led groups said in their Dec. 2 statement. "This awareness is necessary from the point of view of both the health worker and the patient, and each participant in this process deserves to know the source of the vaccine used to allow them to follow their own moral conscience."

In a November 21 statement, the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, Mercy Sister Mary Haddad, said that CHA ethics, "in collaboration with other Catholic bioethicists," have found "nothing morally prohibitive with the vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech ".

He said they made this determination using guidelines issued by the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life in 2005 and 2017 on the origin of vaccines.

The CHA encouraged Catholic health organizations "to distribute the vaccines developed by these companies."

In a November 23 memo to their brother bishops, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, chairman of the Doctrine Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, the chair of the USCCB's Life Activities Committee addressed the moral suitability of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Neither, they said, “involved the use of cell lines that originated in fetal tissue taken from the body of an aborted baby at any level of design, development or production. However, they are not completely exempt from any connection to abortion, as both Pfizer and Moderna used a contaminated cell line for one of the confirmatory laboratory tests of their products.

“So there is a connection, but it's relatively remote,” they continued. “Some claim that if a vaccine is connected in any way to contaminated cell lines, then it is immoral to be vaccinated with them. This is an inaccurate representation of Catholic moral teaching “.

As Bishop Rhoades and Archbishop Naumann, John Brehany, director of institutional relations at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, said in a recent interview with the "Current News" program on NET TV, the cable channel of the diocese of Brooklyn , New York, that Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were not produced using cell lines derived from aborted fetal tissue.

On December 3, the California Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state's Catholic bishops, said it "claims" that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines "are morally acceptable." He said he is committed to working closely with Catholic health ministries and Catholic charities, as well as with local government and other entities to promote and encourage people to get vaccinated and "defend vulnerable populations to ensure they have access to Vaccines against covid19. "

The conference also said it "will provide regular and accurate information to parishioners and the community in support of morally acceptable, safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines."