Let me me re-phrase my comment. Part of the Amish way of life is directly tied to not taking advantage of modern medical advances for what are considered preventative measures.
Correct. There are no major religions that object to vaccines. None.
(There are some objections being circulated, however, bcos the vax may have used fetal cells in development and manufacturing.)
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I like the Novavax technology. It directly injects manufactured bits of the spike protein into the deltoid muscle where the immune system can get right to work on it. It is a newer technology, but I prefer it to the MRNA vaccines which deliver a âmessageâ into your cells telling the ribosomes to make the spike protein so your immune system can then react to it. Novavax trials show very high efficacy with supposedly has fewer side effects but they havenât released all the data yet. Itâs a guessing game but our family has some issues that might make it a safer choice.
Sorry, I canât remember how to quote, but itâs a an over-simplification to say no mainstream religions object to the vaccines or info is âcirculating â about the fetal cell use as though itâs a rumor. The use of abortion-derived fetal cells in vaccine development has been a moral issue long before covid with the guidelines being take one only if you have no other choice.
Based on my memory, the US Catholic bishops sent a letter to the NIH in April 2020 asking for covid vaccines that did not rely on fetal stem cells obtained from an abortion. Currently, no covid vaccines are available in the US that are not manufactured and/or tested on a fetal cell line. Pfizer and Moderna were both tested for efficacy using HEK293, while Johnson and Johnson relies continually on the cell line PER.C6 for its vaccine as the adenovirus vector is grown in the cells. The (AstraZeneca vaccine uses HEK293 in the same way J&J uses PER.C6.)
When the vaccines became available, the US bishops issued a letter saying Catholics can morally get a covid vaccine but they should, if they have a choice, avoid the J&J because it is morally more problematic.
The letter also states Catholics have a moral obligation to protest against vaccines that use abortion-derived cell lines. They provide templates on the USCCB website to send letters to the pharmaceutical companies that produce those vaccines.
I know lots of Catholics who got the vaccine but I never heard of any who objected as they were asked to do, and I know a lot of Catholics who will not use the currently available vaccines because of the abortion connection regardless of what Pope Francis or their local bishop says about it. There are priests and bishops that encourage the use of the current vaccines and those who object to them. But itâs not their role to tell us what to do as much as provide information to help us make an informed decision.
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Neither Pfizer nor Moderna vaccines use fetal cells in the design, development, or production of their MRNA vaccines. Both used fetal cells from cell line HEK-293 in confirmatory testing, but we do not know whether this particular cell line is from an aborted fetusâŠthis line could have been from a miscarriage (the line is quite old, from 1973). See Lozier Institute info, with nice charts: What you need to know about the COVID-19 vaccines - Lozier Institute and this Wikipedia page: HEK 293 cells - Wikipedia
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The Pope clearly said that people have a moral obligation to obtain the covid vaccine. In fact, the Pope was one of the first in Italy to receive the vax. That to me means, he has no religious objection, and since he is the leader of the flockâŠ
Not to say that others donât claim to have a personal (religious) objection, but if the Pope says the covid vax is ok, the official position of The Church is that it is ok. (regardless of what local Bishops might say)
As an aside, all 50 states require vaccinations for kids to attend school. But in recent years, a handful of states have recognized that since no major religion objects to vaccines (after hearing from religious leaders), the states have eliminated the religious exemption for school kids. In those 5-6 states, now the only exemption to vaccinations for kids is for medical reasons.
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According to States With Religious and Philosophical Exemptions From School Immunization Requirements , the states that have medical exemptions only for K-12 vaccinations are CA, CT (2021), ME, MS, NY, WV.
Note that some required vaccinations in some of these states (e.g. rubella and chicken pox in MS) are only available in versions that have some connection to an abortion.
It doesnât matter what the pope clearly said. It is not his role.
Colorado allows exemption for personal reasons, and it doesnât have to be religious. It can be for no reason at all.
It will be interesting to see if those parents who object to vaccinations (MMR, Dtap, flu shots) will be standing in line for their kids to get the covid vaccinations. Boulder has a big % of kids in public schools who arenât vaccinated and yet there was a big demand for covid vaccines for a long time, well into May, with Boulderites traveling to other counties to get shots.
The US Bishops: âwe affirm again that being vaccinated can be an act of charity that serves the common good.â March 2, 2021
Tending towards off topic, but my point stands: religions are not a reason for Vaccine Reluctance.
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I think you are assuming people that adhere to a religion are robots. They are not, or at least they shouldnât be; they are people with the freedom to make a choice according to their own, hopefully informed, conscience.
The pope and individual bishops are entitled to their personal opinions but they can only speak with authority on faith and morals related to church doctrine.
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Many credible sources refer to HEK293 as originating from an elective abortion, but it could be possible that a miscarried fetus got mixed up with the aborted fetuses that were being experimented on at the time in the attempts to get a cell line going.
All kinds of vaccines have been created using animal testing and, possibly, aborted fetuses. If God made us smart enough to figure out how to create things that keep people alive, I am guessing God is ok with people getting covid vaccines.
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Oddly, Marin County in California, long known as a hotbed of anti-vaccine activism and private K-12 schools with low rates of vaccination (for typical child vaccines like MMR), has a very high rate of COVID-19 vaccination compared to other counties in the state.
But then maybe it is because all of the people there who are not anti-vaccine activists want to get vaccinated because they consider the anti-vaccine activists living among them to be dangerous disease vectors.
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I would not fault anyone for choosing to take a covid vaccine. I do not judge them. I believe they are making a good choice for their own health and for the common good.
My children and I are all vaccinated with vaccines that have the fetal stem cell connection. I donât know about my husband. He was not raised in the US, is older, and had some of the diseases that childhood vaccines are meant to prevent. I was particularly grateful for the rabies shots I had to get a few years ago, and I would like to think God approved of my use of it. Some rare people might see my choice of accepting them as wrong, but I made those decisions based on what was available to me at the time given the risks involved.
I think it is unfortunate that we have no better covid vaccine choices now, not in terms of efficacy but in terms of conscience, but it is what it is. I have to work this out in terms of my risks and my conscience given the ongoing market in fetal tissue harvesting that I find objectionable.
I realize people might not choose vaccination and then end up needing an antibody therapy that relies on the same cells they were trying to avoid. I actually know of a couple of cases of that, but I donât think the individuals involved are aware of that. I do not want to be in that position.
The Vatican and the US Catholic bishops are in agreement.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith lays out the moral issues and principles here:
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops applies these principles specifically to the available vaccines in the US here:
USCCB has teaching authority for US Catholics and will be in communion with Rome on matters of faith and morals. Their job is to explain and apply the Catholic Churchâs magisterium in the context of specifics facing American Catholics. A great example would be whether one particular Covid vaccine offered is a better or more problematic choice than another from a faith and morals standpoint.
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Same in MN.
As my previous post clarifies, the question of whether to receive the Covid vaccine is clearly within the realm of faith and morals, according to leadership in the Catholic Church.
In terms of guidance from religious leadership - correct. In terms of those who are morally opposed to any vaccine involving an aborted fetus - incorrect; there are Catholics and others out there who, after consulting with their spiritual advisors, have made that choice according to their conscience (whether correctly informed or not) and believe that they are following the teachings of their church. Just not the teachings of this or that person at the helm of the church. Itâs complicated because the human will is always involved, and personal respect for and trust in this or that pope or the head of the USCCB can easily influence a decision.
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Well yes, they all want to go to Greece. Or wherever is open this summer . But MMR vaccines are still causing autism.
My edit was for the previous comment from Marin.
Itâs because some people have become complacent about things like measles, mumps, whooping cough, etc. and feel like they things arenât a big deal (because those people only remember a time when we had vaccines for them). On the other hand, COVID is here right now and they can see the risk and and the benefit of getting the vaccine.
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