I don’t have time to research all the vaccine misinformation you throw out here. I’ll wait for one of the actual doctors to weigh in.
Cc: @LM77
What many people are talking about is research, not medicine. In many cases, these are cells that came from fetuses many decades ago, and for some we don’t know if these were natural miscarriages or elective abortions. In the case of recently derived cell lines, fetal cells are used because they can multiply many more times in the lab before they die off, compared to adult cells. I absolutely favor the development of adult-derived cell lines, but these simply haven’t been developed for many tissue types.
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That is true for some cell lines. Normal cells are fused with cancerous cells, the resulting cells can continue to divide indefinitely. However, I don’t believe these are ever used as medicine, but are instead used for research and in vitro testing.
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I don’t see how they could.
The only vaccines where this could possibly apply is those that use an attenuated vector, such as adenovirus. These adenoviral vectors are incapable of inserting into the host genome, but they could introduce very low numbers of DNA fragments from the host cell they were grown in. From my knowledge, most cancers are caused by mutations and insertion of retroviruses, neither of which is related to bringing in exogenous naked. Your body is continuously bombarded with DNA from the environment, be it through your food or from transient bacterial infections.
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The most popular cell lines that are being used were immortalized, or made cancerous decades ago. That is what makes them useful, because they keep dividing perpetually.
Exactly. This means that you can have decades of research that has used the same cell line which makes the data directly comparable across all those decades. If new adult cells had to be used then we wouldn’t know if the differences between experiments was due to the difference in cells or the difference between the variables you are testing.
With respect to the topic in this thread, mRNA vaccines are not derived from immortalized cells, or any cells for that matter. The mRNA in the vaccine is synthesized in the lab without the use of any cells, as are the lipid nanoparticles that are used to deliver the mRNA into the cytoplasm of cells.
From what I can see, the J&J vaccine is an adenoviral vector, so it will be derived from cultured cells. I’m not sure which cell lines they use for production.
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They used PER.C6.
Thanks for the info. As per @Patrick_S concerns, I found this paper:
From a brief reading of the literature . . .
I was wondering how they produced adenovirus vectors that were incapable of viral replication, and the abstract above seems to hold the answers. They inserted one of the viral genes (E1) into the host genome but have that same gene deleted in the viral vector. This allows for viral replication and production of viruses in the PER.C6 modified cell line, but not in regular cells. When used as a vaccine, the viral vectors introduce the adenoviral RNA genome into the host cells, but the viral genome wouldn’t be replicated. The E1 gene inserted into the PER.C6 genome is anti-apoptotic and encourages replication which allows for the cell line to produce tons of new cells in culture conditions.
With respect to ethical concerns, the PER.C6 cell line did originate from an aborted fetus in 1985.
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I literally made an account to discuss this podcast. For a show that talks about using science, they used very little of it to try and justify getting the vaccine. “We should trust the drug companies”. You mean the drug companies that the government made it impossible to sue? No thanks. Sorry I’m not taking a rushed vaccine. People should get it if 1. They are at a higher risk of dying of covid. Or 2. Someone close to them is a higher risk of dying of covid. Quarantine the sick, not the healthy. Being a Christian and getting the vaccine have nothing to do with one another.
If my understanding is correct, if the drug companies falsified their data in their initial clinical trials then they can be sued.
The important point here is that we have the data now. Millions and millions of people have been vaccinated and very few adverse reactions have been reported. We also have data on how many vaccinated people have been infected after being vaccinated, and that number is very, very low. The total number of people vaccinated is greater than many “unrushed” vaccine trials, so we are well past the point of not rushed, IMO.
Is there some arbitrary time period that you are waiting for before you consider the vaccine not to be rushed?
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What steps do you think were skipped?
What is your background in medicine or public health that you feel confident giving advice on matters of life and death?
That would be nice if we could. With this virus, though, we don’t know who’s contagious.
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I had skimmed the transcript, but finally got around to listening to the full podcast and found it thought provoking.
While a few Biologos podcasts talk about the science, this one like most are actually more about how we process and interact with the science. I thought the insight they gave as to why we think and feel the way we do was helpful in processing how to deal with the friends and acquaintances who believe the distortions and false reports that are rampant in social media. Hopefully that insight will help us move forward.
One thing that the program made me think about is how like the parable of the Good Samaritan is the situation we are living out. Some pass by the bleeding and broken because they value other things like personal liberty and acceptance by their own community more. It does not mean they do not care, just that their priority is different. Of course, Christ calls on us to change and put our priorities aside to love our neighbor. The rider may not be able to turn Haidt’s elephant, but Christ can.
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See, here’s the thing, what I said earlier were my opinions, you can disagree and that’s perfectly fine. I try my best to NOT tell others how to live their lives. If someone wants to get the vaccine, then by golly I encourage them to do so. If they don’t want to get it, I support that decision as well. It’s really no one else’s business if someone gets the vaccine or not. A person’s health information should not be public knowledge in my opinion.
What I meant was, quarantine the high risk. The other 99% of us should be able to live our lives
The problem (continued community spread) is a communal problem and the solution (high immunity levels in the population) is a communal solution, so you can’t really apply purely individualistic ethics here. It matters to the whole community’s health what individuals do.
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Except for the whole 99% recovery rate. And it’s even higher when you get below the age of around 70. Not to mention all the over reported cases. People are paranoid, I’m not going to play into the fear mongering.
Most people’s standards for health are higher than “not dying.” A recent study found one in three people who had COVID-19 was still experiencing symptoms or effects of damage up to 3-9 months after infection (source). It’s not fear-mongering to want to avoid a virus that leaves one in three people debilitated in some way for months after fighting it off. Three quarters of people hospitalized were still unable to return to work three months later. (source) It’s abundantly clear that any side effects of getting the vaccine are far less concerning that getting the virus (even a mild case) and infection rates for the virus are still very high.
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Something like a third of the population is at high risk.
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Also, 1% death and prolonged morbidity rate of the entire population (if it were true) is a national disaster.
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While the effects both of death and disability are onerous, I wonder if the effects on the psyche both of the nation and of church will be just as far reaching. It provides another wedge to split us apart, as if politics and economics were not enough.
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