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Join the Discussion
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Measles
Mumps Rubella Live Virus Vaccine
Merck & Co., Inc.
800-672-6372
Produced using
sorbitol, neomycin, hydrolyzed gelatin, chick embryo and human
diploid cells originating from aborted human fetal tissue.
Hypocrisy
or Not?
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There
has been a lot of controversy lately about the use of aborted human fetal
tissue for stem cell research. According to a report released July 5,
2001 by the Associated Press, the once promising research is bogged down
with problems, and some in Congress wonder if it should be supported at
all because of the right-to-life issues involved.
It is sad that
those same scientists who are concerned about the abnormalities that are
being discovered in cloned mouse embryos and the congressmen who are
concerned about the issue of using aborted human fetal tissue for stem
cell research haven't shown the same concerns for the vaccine question.
What do these two subjects have in common, you might ask? The answer lies
in the fact that a close reading of the literature published by Merck,
the primary producer of the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine,
indicates that they use aborted human fetal tissue in the production of
this vaccine. Not only that, but several other vaccines use it as well.
The product insert
for the MMR Vaccine shows that,"the rubella virus vaccine live
(contains the Wistar Institute RA 27/3 strain of rubella virus propagated
in human diploid [WI-38] cell culture). These "human diploid cell
cultures" are made from the lung and other tissues of an aborted
fetus.
President Bush's
Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, quoting the President's statements during
the campaign, stated that Bush, "would oppose federally funded
research for experimentation on embryonic stem cells that require live
human embryos to be discarded or destroyed." If this is true, and it
appears to be, then why does he allow the government to mandate that
parents have their children injected with a substance which requires
those same human embryo's to be destroyed in order to manufacture it? Is
this a case, to paraphrase an old western movie, where, "Great White
Father speak with forked tongue"?
Is the life of a
fetus used to manufacturer the MMR or other vaccines less important than
the life of a fetus used to harvest stem cells? This is not a case of
pro-life vs pro-choice, pro-abortion vs anti-abortion or vaccine
supporters vs vaccine opponents. It is a question of consistency. We can
not have one standard for the vaccine industry and another for stem cell
researchers. That is unless we want to convey the message that one life
is more valuable than another.
President Bush, you
can't have it both ways. You can't straddle the fence. One of the demands
of your job is that you make the hard choices and take stands that may be
unpopular with a segment of the population. We've had too many Presidents
that tried that approach and as a result committed political suicide.
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