Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Fact Checked

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • The claim made by some citizen journalists is that certain COVID-19 vaccines “contain cells from an aborted fetus.” One video headline stated: “CONFIRMED — aborted fetus in COVID-19 vaccine”
  • Fact checkers have “debunked” these claims and labeled them false, in one instance because the name of the fetal cell line was incorrect and in others because the vaccines do not literally “contain” these cells; rather, the fetal cell lines were used as a growth medium for the virus during the production phase
  • Fact checkers’ claim that fetal cells are not used in vaccine development because they are clones of the original is perhaps the most ludicrous. There’s no difference between cells growing and multiplying indefinitely in a petri dish and cells growing and multiplying in your body during your lifetime. If the cells in your body are still you, then the cells in the petri dish are still that of the original fetus that was aborted
  • Aside from ethical concerns, some may also object to vaccines manufactured through the use of fetal cell lines on the basis that there may be health risks involved, due to potential DNA contamination. Human fetal cell lines in vaccine production have been linked to both autism and autoimmune diseases
  • Vaccine makers using a fetal cell line in the development of their COVID-19 vaccines include AstraZeneca, Jansen Research and Development/Johnson & Johnson, CanSino Biologics, University of Pittsburgh, ImmunityBio and Altimmune

In addition to standard concerns over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines is the moral dilemma of taking vaccines made with aborted fetal cells. For many, this alone is a cause for objection. Several of the vaccine candidates, including AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, are made using aborted fetal cell lines.1,2

Several fact checkers — including Politifact,3 The Associated Press4 and Snopes5 — have labeled the claim as “false,” but is it? As it turns out, fact checkers are relying on semantics to “debunk” this claim. In reality, most thinking individuals are able to determine the truth of the matter once the details are explained.

Semantics and Technicalities Used to ‘Debunk’ the Truth

A common mistake by less experienced citizen journalists is to use rather general terms, assuming people will “get the gist” without having to be overly specific, and this is precisely what self-declared fact checkers home in on when rating something false or misleading.

Fact checkers routinely rely on semantics and technicalities to break apart a given claim, and unless you carefully read their explanation, you’re likely to miss this and simply write it off based on the headline claiming something to be false. The case of COVID-19 vaccines containing aborted fetal cells is a perfect example of this, so let’s go through some of what you need to know before discounting this claim off-hand.

Commonly Used Fetal Cell Lines

There are several cell lines commonly used in vaccine development that originate from aborted fetuses, including:6

  • HEK2937,8,9,10,11 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from kidney tissue obtained from a female fetus aborted in the Netherlands in 1972
  • MRC512 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the lung tissue of a 14-week-old male fetus aborted in 1966
  • PER.C613 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the retina of an 18-week-old male fetus aborted in the Netherlands in 1985
  • WI3814 — human embryonic cell line originally derived from the lung tissue of a 12-week-old female fetus aborted in 1961

Vaccine makers using at least one of these fetal cell lines in the development of their COVID-19 vaccines include:15,16,17

AstraZeneca (HEK293) Jansen Research and Development (owned by Johnson & Johnson), (PER.C6)
CanSino Biologics (HEK293) University of Pittsburgh (HEK293)
ImmunityBio (HEK293) Altimmune (PER.C6)

Vaccine makers using either “ethically derived” cell lines, meaning cell lines that do not originate from aborted human fetuses, or no cell lines at all, include Moderna, Merck, Novavax, Sanofi Pasteur, Pfizer, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline and Sinovac.18