For better or worse, rapidly developed Covid vaccines are on the way. If your bishop were to shortly decree that due to public health concerns....."

  • Thread starter Thread starter IanM
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Canvas said:
242297_2.png
HomeschoolDad:
I would much prefer to receive a vaccine not developed in this way, but in the real world, I have to wonder if, in individual cases, the recipient will have much of a choice in the matter. There will be different schools of thought on this, and ultimately, I would welcome a clear statement from Rome, to settle the matter for Catholics (and anyone else who cares to heed what the Church says) throughout the world.
Click to expand...
Brian Kane, the senior director of ethics for the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said Catholics should be aware of the origins of vaccines but added the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are not ethically compromised.

“In terms of the moral principles of being concerned about the use of any pharmaceuticals that were developed from aborted fetuses, that is certainly an issue that we all want to be cognizant of and try to avoid their use,” he said. “With that in mind, the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines that are coming out are not even tainted with that moral problem.”
Click to expand...
Then I would look to Rome, and to the bishops of the various national conferences, all to speak una voce dicentes, and urge Catholics only to receive the unproblematical vaccines, and appeal to civil and medical entities not to attempt to force Catholics to violate their consciences in the matter. Religious liberty is indeed a two-edged sword.
 
whatistrue said:
A vaccine, on the other hand, is made of parts of the virus that it is intended to protect against (there are several methods: weakened, killed, parts, etc.) so that the patient’s immune system starts producing antibodies and is sensitized to the way the virus “looks” to the body so it can recognize it quicker and can produce the right antibodies faster if it ever comes in contact with it again, which ideally allows the patient to either fight it off entirely or at least only get a mild case rather than a debilitating or fatal one.
Click to expand...
There have been some amusing (albeit in a sad way) proposals from anti-vaxxers who did not understand that. Like, “Instead of injecting people with ‘chemicals,’ why not expose them to a weaker/dead version of the pathogen?” Congratulations, you have gone so far into anti-vax land that you’ve come out the other side and invented vaccination.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nik
Usagi said:
Congratulations, you have gone so far into anti-vax land that you’ve come out the other side and invented vaccination .
Click to expand...
Who knew the rabbit hole was a wormhole? It is a logic ouroboros.
 
Last edited:
RhodesianSon said:
48.png
Cruciferi:
Coronaviruses are notoriously hard to make effective vaccines for.
Click to expand...
The common cold is a coronavirus. We don’t have a vaccine for it. For a reason.
Click to expand...
My point stands. Coronaviruses are nothing new, so it is not like they are inventing the wheel, or that all the research and development was done only yesterday or even this year. If memory serves, there was a program at least as far back as 2017 in Australia to develop a vaccine for a very similar coronavirus. So no-one had to start from scratch.

Of course, as with all vaccines, and indeed all rmedical treatments, there are risks, contraindications and sometimes things go wrong. It’s always a juggling act to weigh up the risks of any vaccine or other treatment against the risks (far from negligible in this case) of being unvaccinated or untreated.

Rather like cancer - cancer treatments are often brutal, but the disease is deadly. Vaccines like Gardasil, despite the risks and problems which are no doubt present, have saved lives.

Mind you, it seems like a staggering amount of public and private resources have been thrown at this, which hopefully translates to top-notch research and testing and means we can have a high degree of confidence.
 
Last edited:
That is your choice, of course, but in a situation where there is only one vaccine and it is derived from fetal cells the Church has said we are permitted to take such a vaccine when there is no alternative.
The Church position outweighs any feeling I may have.
 
Last edited:
I’d get the vaccine and return to Mass. Actually, my doctor told me to get it as soon as it’s available. I trust my doctor and obey my bishop (I guess I trust him, too!)
 
Montrose said:
That is your choice, of course, but in a situation where there is only one vaccine and it is derived from fetal cells the Church has said we are permitted to take such a vaccine when there is no alternative.
The Church position outweighs any feeling I may have.
Click to expand...
The two COVID vaccines most likely to be available first, from Pfizer and Moderna, are not produced with cell lines derived from abortions.

In an internal memo dated Nov. 23, Bishop Kevin Rhoades, who chairs the bishops’ committee on doctrine, and Archbishop Joseph Naumann, the head of the committee on pro-life activities, wrote to the bishops of the United States that the two RNA vaccine candidates appear to be ethically sound.

“Neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna vaccine 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,” the bishops wrote.

The Pontifical Academy for Life, in a Nov. 22 statement posted to Twitter, said based on its own 2005 and 2017 guidance on the origin of vaccines, the academy has found “nothing morally prohibitive with the vaccines developed” by Moderna or Pfizer.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute, research arm of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, has listed the Moderna vaccine among the “ethically uncontroversial CoV-19 vaccine programs.”

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...as-vaccine-have-to-aborted-fetal-tissue-20134
 
Last edited:
I’ll be taking it mainly to protect others around me both physically and economically, and secondarily to physically protect myself. I’ll take the non-fetal stem cell-derived vaccine (so Pfizer and Moderna, but not Astra Zeneca) when it’s available to me - a fairly young and healthy person. Because I know it will go to many people before me (health care workers, the elderly and the vulnerable), I know there’s going to be that much more safety/side effect experience with it before it’s my turn.

I think the concern that it’s been developed too quickly is overblown, because the development situation is not comparable to a normal vaccine development cycle. A big part of the reason it normally takes many years is because you have a smaller number of companies (maybe even one?) working on a vaccine at a normal pace (employees working 40 hours a week), and we don’t even think about putting rollout infrastructure in place until it’s all completely approved and ready.

Here we have had at least 25 companies all working on it simultaneously, all with their own clinical trials. Many of those companies have people working way more than the normal timeframe (dare I say 24/7 in some cases – I think I’ve read some companies say that). And the rollout infrastructure is being put in place now, before anything is even approved, so that they can move to rollout much faster than a normal vaccine.

So if this vaccine comes to market in 20% of the time a normal one takes, it’s not because it’s had 20% of the testing or missed 80% of the safety steps needed. It’s more like they crammed 90% of the normal multi-year work into one year. I’m sure there’s certainly some element of less testing/safety knowledge than normal, but it’s quite a lot smaller than people are assuming with the purely time-based “it took one year instead of five” logic.
 
Last edited:
Canvas said:
“Neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna vaccine 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,” the bishops wrote.
Click to expand...
My research on NCBC gives me the impression that they were used during testing. I can’t find it explicitly though.

Yes, if getting the vaccine was the only way to be able to attend Mass I’d do so.

Ideally I would like to wait 5 years though. I’m more concerned about potential side effects due to the rush than I am about Covid. Mass and the ability to hug my nieces are the things that may encourage me to get it sooner.
 
Elf01 said:
My research on NCBC gives me the impression that they were used during testing. I can’t find it explicitly though.

Yes, if getting the vaccine was the only way to be able to attend Mass I’d do so.

Ideally I would like to wait 5 years though. I’m more concerned about potential side effects due to the rush than I am about Covid. Mass and the ability to hug my nieces are the things that may encourage me to get it sooner.
Click to expand...
Actually it was anti-vaxxers spreading false rumours about them using fetal cells. That was debunked.
 
Montrose said:
Actually it was anti-vaxxers spreading false rumours about them using fetal cells. That was debunked.
Click to expand...
Could you give a link please? I watched a video from the NCBC, so I’m pretty sure that it’s not just anti vax stuff I’m reading. It was hard to tell. As I said, there was nothing explicit, but they talked about the morality of using cell lines derived from aborted babies in testing, and how it was phrased gave me the impression that that may be the case for the Covid vaccines. I would love an explicit statement that I can see and send to pro lifers who have expressed concerns.
 
Elf01 said:
Could you give a link please? I watched a video from the NCBC, so I’m pretty sure that it’s not just anti vax stuff I’m reading. It was hard to tell. As I said, there was nothing explicit, but they talked about the morality of using cell lines derived from aborted babies in testing, and how it was phrased gave me the impression that that may be the case for the Covid vaccines. I would love an explicit statement that I can see and send to pro lifers who have expressed concerns.
Click to expand...
I did not bookmark a link because there were so many different links about the same thing.
 
Based on personal experience I’m not a big fan of any of those. My kids are all grown and can make their own decisions, but as for me and my wife, we don’t do any vaccinations, don’t drink fluoridated water, don’t go to licensed doctors, and are all the better off for it.

Or as RR would say, me and my husband.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top