Why are aborted fetuses used in vaccines

These include vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, rotavirus, polio, and smallpox. Of these, only rotavirus and polio vaccines are routinely given. Alberts, B. Molecular Biology of the Cell. New York: Garland Science; Barr Labs. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Elimination of rubella and congenital rubella syndrome--United States, MMWR Morb.

Package Insert — Havrix. Hayflick, L. The serial cultivation of human diploid cell strains. Experimental Cell Research. Personal correspondence. April Preparation of poliovirus vaccines in a human fetal diploid cell strain. Am J Hyg. Lindquist, J. Congenital rubella syndrome as a systemic infection: studies of affected infants born in Philadelphia, USA.

Br Med J ; Package Insert -- Rotateq. Package Insert — Varivax Frozen. Package Insert — Zostavax. National Catholic Bioethics Center. FAQ on the Use of Vaccines. Olshansky, S. The role of the WI cell strain in saving lives and reducing morbidity.

Plotkin, S. Philadelphia: Saunders; Clin Infect Dis. Sanofi Pasteur. Sgreccia, E. Last update: 10 November A massive rubella outbreak in the United States initially failed to draw serious attention.

Unfortunately, despite warnings about keeping infected children away from pregnant women, nearly 50, women in vulnerable stages of their pregnancies were infected with rubella during the outbreak, leading to thousands of miscarriages and even more children being born with severe damage.

At least 8, were born deaf, 3, deaf and blind; the total number of congenital rubella syndrome cases reached 20, Over the course of the outbreak the country tallied approximately Resulting medical costs reached the billions.

What is a reason that growing influenza viruses in chicken eggs is not ideal? True or false? An advantage of using human cell strains to grow vaccine viruses is avoiding the non-human viruses that may be found in non-human animal cells. Article Menu [ ]. Vaccine Science [ ]. Biological Weapons, Bioterrorism, and Vaccines. Cancer Vaccines and Immunotherapy.

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The History of the Lyme Disease Vaccine. Find out more in this Vaccine Update article. Even though fetal cells are used to grow vaccine viruses, vaccines do not contain these cells or pieces of DNA that are recognizable as human DNA. People can be reassured by the following:. Learn more about fetal tissues used in vaccines by watching this short video, part of the Talking about Vaccines with Dr. Paul Offit video series. View this video with a transcript.

For a more detailed description of the history related to the use of fetal cells, please read our article about the book, The Vaccine Race , by Meredith Wadman from the April Vaccine Update. For an interview about the use of fetal cells to make the rubella vaccine, view this video interview, Stanley Plotkin: Pioneering the use of fetal cells to make rubella vaccine. Columbia University Press. Materials in this section are updated as new information and vaccines become available.

The Vaccine Education Center staff regularly reviews materials for accuracy. You should not consider the information in this site to be specific, professional medical advice for your personal health or for your family's personal health. The main ingredients in vaccines are antigens, which are small amounts of the bacteria or virus against which the person is being vaccinated. Antigens are the parts of the vaccine that encourage your immune system to create antibodies to fight against future infections.

To make sure that the vaccines cannot cause the disease you are trying to protect against, the antigens are altered or weakened. Learn more about how vaccines are made and how they work. Like many of the foods we eat and beverages we drink, vaccines also contain a small amount of additional ingredients, and each has a specific, necessary function. These additional ingredients have been studied and are safe for humans in the amount used in vaccines.

In fact, the amount of these additional ingredients in vaccines is much less than children encounter in their environment, food and water. Sometimes a child may be sensitive to one of the components of a vaccine, and an allergic reaction may result. For this reason, you should discuss any allergies your child may have with your healthcare provider. Below are the ingredients that may be found in certain vaccines and their purpose.

When an individual vaccine dose is drawn from a multi-dose vaccine vial with a new needle, it is possible for bacteria or fungus to get into the vial, which could be very dangerous to the people getting the shots. To prevent this contamination, a preservative is added to the vaccine vial. Since , the United States Code of Federal Regulations has required the addition of a preservative to multi-dose vials of vaccines; and worldwide, preservatives are routinely added to multi-dose vials of vaccine.

Tragic consequences have followed the use of multi-dose vials that did not contain a preservative including deaths and are the driving force for this requirement. Having safe, multi-dose vials of vaccines available for us to use is very important, especially when a large number of people need to be vaccinated quickly, which could be the case during a flu, coronavirus or other disease pandemic.

Thimerosal is a preservative used in multi-dose vials of flu vaccines to prevent contamination with bacteria or fungus, which could be deadly. Thimerosal is made from a type of mercury call ethyl mercury. This kind of mercury is broken down by the body and clears out of the blood quickly. Methylmercury is found naturally in the environment. It is also the kind of mercury that is found in fish like salmon and shellfish; and also in many everyday products, foods and drinks.

Methyl mercury accumulates in the body and takes much longer to remove from the body. A buildup of methylmercury in the body is usually due to eating certain types of fish or other drinks or food, and high amounts can harm the nervous system.

Over a lifetime, everyone is exposed to some methylmercury. Even though there was no evidence that thimerosal in vaccines was dangerous, in , it was removed from vaccines in the U.

To keep vaccines safe from contamination without the use of thimerosal or other preservatives, they were either reformulated or put into single-dose vials. Now, the only vaccines in the U. Thimerosal-free, single-dose vials of flu vaccine are also available in the U. There is no evidence that the small amounts of thimerosal in flu vaccines cause any harm, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site. MMR measles, mumps, and rubella , chickenpox varicella , inactivated polio IPV , and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines PCV never contained thimerosal as a preservative.

No credible scientific studies have found an association between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. The studies used different methods to find out if there was any connection between thimerosal and autism. Some examined rates of autism a state or a country, comparing autism rates before and after thimerosal was removed as a preservative from vaccines.

It is important to note that in the U. To read the studies yourself, visit our Vaccine Research section. The Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety , which provides independent, authoritative, scientific advice to the World Health Organization WHO on vaccine safety issues of global or regional concern, has also concluded that there is no evidence of toxicity in infants, children or adults exposed to thimerosal in vaccines. You can learn more about vaccines and autism on the Autism Science Foundation website.

Watch Now: Is there mercury thimerosal in vaccines? Is that dangerous? Formaldehyde is a colorless gas that is a byproduct of metabolism so it is already present in the human body. People also encounter formaldehyde every day in the environment. It is used in making building materials and many household products, and formaldehyde also gets into the air through car tailpipe emissions. Formaldehyde is used is used to inactivate bacterial products for toxoid vaccines DTaP and Tdap , and to kill unwanted viruses and bacteria that might contaminate the vaccine during the manufacturing process.

Most formaldehyde is removed from the vaccine before it is packaged. In very small amounts, formaldehyde is not dangerous. In fact, there is more formaldehyde in a pear than in any one vaccine. Aluminum is everywhere.