Smallpox Vaccine Sparks Ethical Quandary

http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0018688.html

November 29, 2001

Smallpox Vaccine Sparks Ethical Quandary
By Mark Cowan, correspondent

The possibility that terrorists could use smallpox as a weapon has American health professionals concerned. However, the current vaccine places some pro-life advocates in a moral dilemma.

Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1977. The chance of a natural reoccurrence is considered to be very small. However, Dr. Gene Rudd, vice president of the Christian Medical Association, said the chance terrorists will obtain smallpox from secured medical labs is still a reality.

"For that reason and because of the virulence and infective potential of smallpox, then, we need to take precautions against it," Rudd said.

U.S. officials have ordered more than a million doses of a smallpox vaccine from a British company.

Some pro-lifers are concerned that the vaccine was developed using the tissue of a child aborted in 1966. Medical ethicist Dr. Robert Orr said the real question is moral complicity.

"I think that the MRC-5 cell line — that's the cell line that was used to develop the smallpox vaccine in 1966 — is sufficiently separated in both time and intent from the current usage to prevent smallpox," Orr said. "So, I see no concern about moral complicity, even for those opposed to abortion."

But Focus on the Family Bioethics Analyst Carrie Gordon Earll said what's really needed is an option.

"I think this scenario puts pro-lifers in a tough spot, and I'm not sure we need to accept this as the only alternative," Earll said. "We need to call on the government to put more research effort into this before we invest our tax dollars into a vaccine that comes from a tainted source."

Several pro-life organizations are currently drafting letters to the federal government asking it to require vaccines from other sources.

Some of the additional doses the administration ordered will come from American drug companies, reportedly to be manufactured without the use of fetal cell tissue.

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