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Veg*ns... do you/will you vaccinate yourself/children?
In doing my research as to whether to vaccinate our children, I pulled up the CDC's "Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary" of the ingredients in currently administered vaccines... and it's an eye-opener, to say the least.
I won't get into the safety/efficacy questions regarding vaccination here, but I'm curious as to other vegetarian/vegan opinions on many of the animal ingredients in these vaccines... including, but not limited to...
-human serum albumin
-fetal bovine serum
-human-diploid fibroblast cell cultures
-Vero (monkey kidney) cells
-Fenton medium (containing bovine extract)
-calf serum
-egg protein
-chick embryo cell culture
(there are quite a number more, and these are just from a handful of injections... very few seem to be free of any animal or human-tissue based culture).
Just curious to see the veg*n take on vaccination from this angle (I'm not looking for rhetorical or otherwise debate about the safety/efficacy of vaccines... that's for another section of YA entirely).
For those who are interested in the full ingredient lists: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/download... ... it's current as of February 2012.
((I'm sorry, this was obviously meant for the Vegetarian&Vegan section, but I posted it before ensuring YA put it in the right category. Sorry! Feel free to answer if you like, still. ;) ))
cathrl69- I am fully aware of the reasoning behind using animal ingredients, particularly when "delivering" a vaccine to the body. My question isn't about an alternative methodology, but whether or not vegetarians/vegans hold a moral qualm with vaccination based upon this usage of animal products alone. I'm not even touching on the safety of ingredients or the efficacy of vaccination, but was wondering whether someone's philosophical/moral belief system would question the use of animal products in something like vaccination. For non vegetarians/vegans, the question would have run something more the tune of "if you are pro-life, will you use vaccinations including human cells", even if those cells are from 50-years-past fetuses, the moral question is what would come into play, and that's what I was getting at. ;) Thanks for the answer, though!
2 Answers
- Anonymous8 years agoFavorite Answer
Thing is, vaccines are intended to trigger a human immune system into thinking that it's got an illness. Far and away the easiest and most relible way to fake "human illness" is to use something which is human, or close to human, such that it requires minimal alteration. It won't _work_ if you use plant extracts.
If someone decides that's unacceptable to them morally, then that's obviously their choice. But you should be aware why it happens. It's not a "shock horror look how primitive we are to still be doing this" issue.
- Nero AngeloLv 58 years ago
Well as far as i know I've only given Hepatitis A/B&polio vaccine and they don't contain any of those things at least as far as i know.. maybe i'm wrong
