Fighting the Good Fight The War Against Unethical Vaccines

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Fighting the Good Fight: The War Against Unethical Vaccines

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* Health and Healing *

Sunday, March 31, 2002 7:29 PM

Fighting the Good Fight The War Against Unethical

Vaccines

 

 

Hey guys, I am NOT Catholic, but this merits our attention.

Elaine

 

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Ingri Cassel

Sunday, March 31, 2002 4:53 PM

Fighting the Good Fight The War Against Unethical Vaccines

 

 

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by Debi Vinnedge

Executive Director of Children of God for Life

Other Articles by Debi Vinnedge

Fighting the Good Fight: The War Against Unethical Vaccines

 

 

3/11/02

 

 

 

When fetal-cell-line vaccines were being introduced some

thirty-plus years ago, no one heard or knew much about the subject. The lack of

protest against such cell-line vaccines has equated to acceptance by their

producers.

 

 

 

In This Article...

Standing Our Ground

Challenging the Law

Catholic Confusion

Smallpox-No Small Problem

 

 

 

 

Standing Our Ground

 

When it comes to matters of pro-life leadership, Pope John Paul II

has stood his ground in the face of ridicule, denial and abandonment,

encouraging the faithful to do the same. We rally, we pray, we believe and we

love our Church. In an effort to do all we can to cripple the abortion industry,

we avoid products from companies who support Planned Parenthood, charities that

sponsor fetal tissue or embryonic stem cell research, doctors who offer abortion

services and stores that supply over-the-counter abortifacients.

 

When it comes to using vaccines that are derived from abortion, many

parents are objecting by filing for exemptions through their local health

departments and schools, refusing these vaccines for themselves and their

children.

 

Challenging the Law

 

But what happens when parents take such action? The results might

surprise you, depending on the state in which you reside. Children have been

expelled from school, state health departments have used their own

interpretation of Catholic teaching to force vaccinations and, in some cases,

parents have even been threatened with child abuse charges. Yet when such

actions are rightfully challenged, schools and state officials have been forced

by law to back down.

 

" The State does not have the right to decide what a particular

religion does or does not teach, " says Erik Stanley, attorney for the Orlando,

Fla., law firm, Liberty Council. " Nor do they have the right to show

preferential treatment for one religion over another. "

 

Such was the recent case of multiple parents in Arkansas who

challenged that state for their refusal to allow the vaccine exemptions. The

wording of the Arkansas law only allows religious exemptions if that particular

faith refuses all vaccinations, such as Christian Scientists. At the onset of

the hearings in early November 2001, the judge reviewing the cases recognized

that the Arkansas law, as written is most likely unconstitutional. The courts

are upholding the rights of parents in many other states as well.

 

In a shocking case of injustice in the New York school system,

parents were warned their children would be expelled if they did not have

up-to-date immunizations. When parents refused to comply due to religious

conflicts, the children were subsequently expelled and the State Department of

Children and Families Services was notified. That department then threatened to

charge the parents with child abuse for not having their children in school,

calling it " educational neglect. " Once the matter was brought to court, the

children were re-instated, exemptions were allowed and all charges were quickly

dropped.

 

In Wyoming, state health officials were stopped by a federal judge

from holding hearings to determine the sincerity of parents who keep their

children from getting immunizations based on religious objections. The parents

who objected to the mandate protested that the state would be violating their

civil rights if hearings to test their religious sincerity were pursued. The

judge agreed and refused to hear the State's complaint.

 

In Illinois, pro-active citizens pushed for Governor George Ryan's

signature on SB 1305, a bill that removed the Department of Children and Family

Services' regulation of " medical neglect " for parents who chose to refuse

vaccinations for their children based on medical or religious exemptions.

 

Catholic Confusion

 

It is not only the states and public school officials who are trying

to iron out the nuances of the law and decide if parents should be allowed

exemptions from vaccines that violate their religious beliefs. Ironically, some

Catholic schools that are just finding out about the vaccine sources are

scratching their heads in frustration as well. One diocesan religious education

director contacted by this reporter was shocked to learn that the vaccines they

were requiring for school admission could possibly be derived from aborted fetal

tissue. He stated, " How could this be? Why, the Church would never allow such a

thing! "

 

Once the evidence was laid out before their administration, however,

they still pondered over whether the exemptions should be allowed because the

Church, they reasoned, had not formally rendered any guidelines. They questioned

whether allowing the exemption would cause a sudden onslaught of parents

requesting it, and therefore a possibility of spreading disease. The conclusion

was fairly simple. When a parent decides not to vaccinate, they are accepting

the fact that their child may contract the disease. They weigh that against the

added possibility that using the vaccine, regardless of its source, is not in

itself without a certain amount of risk. They are not endangering the health of

other children whose parents do not share their same moral values because those

children would have already been immunized. A far greater concern was that

refusing the exemption would be construed as anti-life: What kind of pro-life

message would they be sending to parents and the general public if a Catholic

school refused its own religious exemptions, while the public schools allowed

it?

 

Fr. Phillip Wolfe, FSSP, from the Fraternity Apostolate in Kansas

City, Kan., stated, " Optimally, the Catholic schools would be encouraging

parents not to vaccinate when the vaccination is obtained with illicit means. In

effect, the Catholic schools can simply say that they are abiding by the

principles which govern the public schools-which allow for a religious

exemption. "

 

Yet some schools and parishes have chosen to simply remain silent on

the subject, perhaps fearing they will have to commit themselves as to whether

it is morally permissible to use the vaccines. But the issue at stake has not

required that such determinations need to be made at all. The bottom line is

that parents have a constitutional right to refuse any vaccine or medical

product that would violate their religious or moral beliefs. And in order to do

so, parents need the Church teaching to back them. Indeed, the very act of not

exposing the truth to concerned parents could be viewed as an act of complicity

with the pharmaceutical companies that have tried to keep the issue quiet. Fr.

Anthony Zimmerman STD, a retired professor of moral theology at the Divine Word

Seminary of Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan agreed, saying, " An opportunity is

presented here to protest against the prevailing Culture of Death and to do

something positive for the Culture of Life by vigorous opposition to the use of

tainted vaccines. " He added, " It is wrong for the [Catholic] schools to be a

light-yet not shine for the public. "

 

Whereas many parents anxiously await guidance from their parish

priests and dioceses, others have taken it further, continuing up the ladder of

Church hierarchy. In the case of one woman, that meant putting in a call to the

Vatican. " I just didn't know where else to turn, " the frantic mother told this

reporter. " I went to my pastor, my diocese-no one seemed to have any solid

answers. My child was on the verge of being expelled from school because I

refused to allow him to be injected with cells of a slaughtered baby used in the

chickenpox vaccine! "

 

That phone call would actually pave the way as a small ray of hope

for many Catholics who were being refused religious exemptions. The response

from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to Children of God for Life,

a non-profit organization fighting to obtain ethical vaccines from the

pharmaceutical companies, stated: " In the absence of any formal guidelines from

the Magisterium of the Church, parents should use the Church's teaching on moral

conscience " (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1776-1789). Those documents,

along with several other references to the Church's position on abortion and

respect for human life were compiled and put on Children of God's website within

24 hours (see www.cogforlife.org). It is now one of their most frequented pages

and has been used to successfully challenge schools, public heath officials and

state laws that try to dictate what the Catholic Church teaches on this issue.

 

While some continue to argue that parents have a duty to protect

their children from disease, the question then follows: Is that " duty " more

compelling than a parent's decision to follow his/her conscience? None of the

moral theologians, priests or bishops consulted seem to think so. " One duty must

be weighed against another duty, " said Fr. Zimmerman. " The duty to vaccinate is

questionable and slight at best, because the vaccine is tainted, because the

danger of infection is remote, because the danger of being harmed by the vaccine

is not absent. No clear duty to vaccinate is present. "

 

Smallpox-No Small Problem

 

While the risks associated with refusing present vaccines may be

minimal, there is a clear and present danger brewing as the pharmaceutical

companies develop new vaccines, ignoring what they perceive to be only a minor

fuss over using aborted fetal tissue.

 

On 28 October 2001, the Washington Post published a seemingly

innocuous article that announced the U.S. government's award of a contract to a

little-known British company, Acambis, to produce a new smallpox vaccine. The

article might have passed with barely a yawn had they not mentioned the new

vaccine would be " developed using human fibroblasts. "

 

Further checking with the Centers for Disease Control and the FDA

revealed that the company would be using the MRC-5 aborted fetal cell line as a

" cell substrate " for developing the new vaccine. MRC-5 was taken from the lung

tissue of an aborted male infant at 14 weeks gestation and is used in the

chickenpox and hepatitis A vaccines as well as the tainted versions of the polio

and rabies vaccines.

 

But the most outrageous fact is that the CDC report further stated

that there were other fully acceptable, FDA-approved animal cell substrates that

could be effectively used as well.1

 

Children of God for Life immediately went to work to alert the

public and the media. In a 24-hour on-line poll conducted by WorldNetDaily News

on 18 November 2001, 56 percent of the 3,335 respondents said they would refuse

the vaccine if it used aborted fetal tissue; 34 percent said it would not deter

them and the remainder was undecided. These types of statistics combined with

the already growing half-million people who are currently protesting the

existing vaccines could have meant devastating results.

 

Thousands of letters from angry citizens poured in to the offices of

Health and Human Services, the CDC, the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies

involved in the contract bids, pleading for alternatives and vowing they would

refuse the smallpox vaccine, no matter what the consequences might be.

 

Thirty days later on 29 November 2001, as our government awarded a

second contract to Acambis-Baxter for 155 million more doses of the smallpox

vaccine, Acambis CEO John Brown announced at a press conference in the UK that

they would be using the non-tainted Vero cell line-not MRC-5-for these new

doses. Although they will continue to use MRC-5 for the first 54 million doses,

there will be an alternative.

 

Had this sort of information been made public 30 years ago when

aborted fetal cell lines MRC-5 and WI-38 were being introduced, it is doubtful

we would now have vaccines that are grown on these cultures. But those producing

the vaccines have perceived a lack of protest as public acceptance. This latest

outcry should serve as a wakeup call to the pharmaceutical industry and their

investors. It's time to end the silence.

 

 

Debi Vinnedge is is the Executive Director of Children of God for

Life.

 

This article is reprinted courtesy of HLI Reports, a publication of

Human Life International.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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