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Coronavirus Vaccines and the Use of Aborted Fetal Cells
Published on : 14/07/2021
The question arises as to whether these fetal cell lines are absolutely necessary for the
development of vaccines, specifically the Covid-19 vaccine. The answer is no: it is possible to
develop vaccines ethically, either using no cells or using animal, chicken egg or yeast
cells. And several pharmaceutical companies are doing this.
We need then to understand the different steps in the development in which cell lines from
aborted fetuses may be used.
1. Design and development phase: it consists in the conceptualization of the vaccine, preparatory
experiments, and specifications as to how the vaccine will be produced.
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09/12/2021, 17:50 Coronavirus Vaccines and the Use of Aborted Fetal Cells - Institut Européen de Bioéthique
Pharmaceutical companies and research institutes that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in
this phase:
- Altimmune (USA)
- Astra Zeneca & University of Oxford (UK, USA)
- ReiThera (Italy)
- Vaxart (USA)
- Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical/Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of
Sciences (China)
Pharmaceutical companies and research institutes using cell lines from aborted fetuses at this
stage:
- Altimmune (USA)
- ImmunityBio and NantKwest (USA)
- Vaxart (USA)
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-ReiThera (Italy)
Pharmaceutical companies and research institutes using cell lines from aborted fetuses at this
stage:
- Altimmune (USA)
- ImmunityBio and NantKwest (USA)
-ReiThera (Italy)
- Novavax (USA)
- Vaxart (USA)
- Inovio Pharmaceuticals (USA)
- Arcturus Therapeutics (USA)
The pharmaceutical companies not using fetal cell lines in any of the three steps are (*in
orange : information still missing):
- Beijing Institute of Biological Products/ Sinopharm (China)
- Merck and IAVI (USA)
- Federal Budgetary Research Institution State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology
“Vektor”
- Sorrento (USA)
- Genexine (Korea)
- Symvivo Corporation (Canada)
- Israel Institute for Biological Research (Israel)
-Laboratorio Avi-Mex (Mexico)
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09/12/2021, 17:50 Coronavirus Vaccines and the Use of Aborted Fetal Cells - Institut Européen de Bioéthique
- Whether alternatives to vaccines developed on the basis of these cell lines from aborted
fetuses exist or not: if ethically developed vaccines exist and are accessible, they must be given
priority.
- The degree of distance, in time but especially in responsibility, between the abortion in question
and the patient who is vaccinated. For example, the patient's responsibility is small compared to
that of the researcher who uses these cell lines and thus encourages the production of similar
lines.
- The phase in the development process in which fetal cell lines were used: if the vaccine was
produced thanks to these fetal cell lines (phase 2), then its use is actually encouraging the
reproduction of fetal cells. However, cooperation is more remote when the pharmaceutical
company has only tested some copies of the vaccine with fetal cells (phase 3).
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