New from me -- took a bit of a deep dive into why some church leaders are opposed to the Oxford vaccine, was actually quite fascinating. https://twitter.com/australiandr/status/1298170749774000130

Couple of quick points: the Oxford vaccine has been developed using the HEK-293 cell-line that was first cultured from cells derived from an aborted fetus decades back. It is just one of 29 vaccine candidates against COVID currently undergoing clinical evaluation.

Using cell-lines cultured from decades-old aborted fetuses is nothing new per se as quite a few other vaccines (eg. for rubella, chicken pox, hep A) have been developed using this technology. Just look up the WI-38 or MRC-5 cell-lines and you'll see how useful they've been.

The thing to note here though is that although the Church (will refer to just the Catholic Church from here on for simplicity) is opposed to abortions & the research done as a result of abortions, it does NOT necessarily oppose all vaccines developed using cell-line technology...

And their reasoning for this is really interesting. Essentially, it boils down to this: is there an "ethically uncontroversial alternative" vaccine? Or is the one developed using human cell-lines the ONLY kind available for a specific disease?

If the former, then the Church's position is basically that followers are morally free to use said vaccine if there is a proportionately serious reason for doing so, eg. preventing child death & illness from rubella.

What does this have to do with the Oxford vaccine? Well, the three Aus church leaders argue that it is unlikely to be the only vaccine developed against COVID-19, & that the federal government should look at striking deals for an alternative that doesn't use cell-lines.

And contrary to some media reports, they do NOT call for a boycott of the Oxford vaccine. They simply warn against making it mandatory or forcing people who may have a conscientious objection to the vaccine from taking it.

tl;dr - it's complicated!

PS: apologies if the thread is a bit jumbled. It has been a long day and I did my best to compress the issues into a neat thread