Tag: aborted fetal cells

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Religion

Antivaxxers, COVID-19 vaccines, and “fetal cells”: Everything old is new again

No, fetal cells are not used to make COVID-19 vaccines

Antivaxxers are raising the specter of “fetal cells” being used in COVID-19 vaccines. In the age of the pandemic, everything old is new again!

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Bioethics Medicine Pseudoscience

False analogies and pseudoscience as “moral arguments” against the use of fetal cell lines to manufacture vaccines

Using fetal cells to grow virus for vaccines

Antivaxers frequently object to the use of fetal cell lines to manufacture vaccines on “moral” grounds. Über-quack Joe Mercola lays down some astonishingly bad moral arguments based on pseudoscience.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Religion

Ginger Taylor, MS dubiously invokes “religious freedom” to argue against vaccination

Ginger Taylor versus world religions and religion

On the eve of Easter and Passover, Ginger Taylor, MS (the MS is in Dunning-Kruger, apparently) tried to invoke several religions to argue for the right not to vaccinate on religious grounds. As usual, it did not go well.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

How “aborted fetal cells” contributed to vaccines preventing billions of cases of disease and many million deaths

Antiabortion antivaccine activists like to claim that “aborted fetal cells” in vaccines mean that vaccines are contaminated products of evil. In reality, there are no “aborted fetal cells” in vaccines. A cell line derived from an aborted fetus in 1962 did, however, lead to huge advances in vaccine technology and the prevention of many millions of deaths worldwide.