Fact Sheet: COVID Vaccines & Fetal Cell Lines

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Fact Sheet: COVID Vaccines & Fetal Cell Lines What is a fetal cell line? A cell taken from an aborted baby is multiplied into many cells of the same kind. These can be grown indefinitely and further multiplied, creating lines of cells that are sometimes used for science experiments. Fetus Kidney Tissue Human Cell Fetal Cell Line Expand and Multiply How are fetal cell lines used in vaccines? Fetal cell lines have been used to grow viruses and then create inactive viruses for vaccines. Historical fetal cell lines (WI-38 and MRC-5) derived in the 1960’s and 1970’s were used to create vaccines for diseases such as Rubella, Hepatitis A, and rabies. These and other historical cell lines (HEK293 and PER.C6) are sometimes used today in the creation of vaccines. Any vaccine that relies on these historic cell lines will not require new abortions. Are fetal cell lines necessary for vaccines? Most vaccines use non-human cells. Vaccines can be developed ethically using no cells or cells from animals, insects, chicken eggs, or yeast. Do COVID vaccines being developed in Operation Warp Speed use fetal cell lines? Six vaccines do not use fetal cell lines. Two vaccines do, using the historically derived fetal cell lines HEK293 and PER.C6. Table: Vaccines being developed in Operation Warp Speed Sponsor(s) Type of Vaccine Production Astrazeneca & Univ. Oxford Adenovirus carrier ❌ HEK293 abortion-derived cell line Janssen and Johnson & Adenovirus carrier ❌ PER.C6 abortion-derived cell line Johnson VSV (animal virus) Merck and IAVI ✅ Vero monkey cells carrier Novavax Protein vaccine ✅ Sf9 insect cells Sanofi and GSK Protein vaccine ✅ Sf9 insect cells Moderna with NIAID mRNA vaccine ✅ No cells used Pfizer and BioNTech mRNA vaccine ✅ No cells used Inovio Pharmaceuticals DNA vaccine ✅ No cells used In order to increase the rates of COVID vaccination among the public, many of whom are opposed to the use of fetal cell lines, policymakers may want to encourage the production and availability of vaccines that do not use fetal cell lines. View more research from Charlotte Lozier Institute on stem cells at https://lozierinstitute.org/category/stem-cells .

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