Letter
NCBC/CMA letter to Archbishop Naumann (2020)
Letter from Joseph Meaney, President, The National Catholic Bioethics Center and Michael Parker, President, Catholic Medical Association to Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, Chairman, USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, July 21, 2020
We are writing to you as the leaders of two organizations dedicated to the faithful application of Catholic moral principles in the fields of health care, the life sciences, and research. In April 2018, we corresponded with your predecessor, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, then Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, regarding the importance of a new vaccine for shingles (Shingrix) that did not rely on aborted fetal cell lines (AFCL) in its development, or use of AFCLs in the production process. We are writing to report a similar and welcome development that provides an opportunity to advocate for a culture of life in America.
The key development involves Sanofi-Pasteur, one of the three largest vaccine manufacturers in the world. Recently Sanofi-Pasteur: (1) ended production of one vaccine (Poliovax) which was produced using aborted fetal cell line MRC-5; (2) ended use of MRC-5 in two current important pediatric vaccines (Pentacel and Quadracel); and (3) began development of a vaccine for COVID-19 which will not make use of AFCLs.
All of this is important because the exploitation of human beings following elective abortion for medical research and development is a serious attack on human dignity that has persisted for decades. It was explicitly condemned by Dignitas Personae in 2008. Yet too often people have been told that there is not much that can be done about the use of AFCLs in vaccines, particularly in pediatric vaccines.