More on Dr. Rachel Levine, Merck, and MMR

Pennsylvania's acting physician general, Rachel Levine, is exhibiting a seriously deficient understanding of concerns about vaccinations: "During a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters, Acting Pennsylvania Physician General Dr. Rachel Levine said measles is a highly contagious, potentially serious illness, but it can be prevented with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.  Levine and others on the call stressed that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective" (Jenny Wagner, TimesOnline, 2/4/15).  Whether its ignorance or callousness, Levine is completely missing the other side of the issue!

"Some [parents] oppose vaccination on scientific grounds, claiming that it can have harmful effects. Others resist on moral grounds, because some vaccines are derived from the cells of aborted babies....Merck ["based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., and has large facilities in Upper Gwynedd and West Point, Montgomery County"], the company that dominates the field, decided in 2009 that its drugs for measles, mumps, and rubella would be bundled into a single MMR vaccine. This creates a serious moral problem, because Merck’s rubella vaccine is derived from the tissue of aborted babies....

"Relying heavily on analysis by the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), [headquartered in Philadelphia], the [National Catholic] Register explains that parents who choose to have their children vaccinated are engaged only in 'remote material cooperation' with abortion. Given the potential risks of disease...the Vatican has stated that parents can be justified in choosing vaccination....reading the Register article, one might conclude that the Vatican has said parents should vaccinate. That’s not accurate....

"What the Vatican did say, with undeniable clarity, was that parents have a moral obligation to insist on vaccines that are not prepared by immoral means: vaccines not derived from fetal remains....The Vatican had called upon American Catholics to fight for the development of morally acceptable vaccines. Sad to say—with the honorable exception of parents who resisted the immoral vaccines, and groups such as  Children of God for Life that supported them—we did not fight hard enough to dissuade Merck from taking a giant step in the opposite direction....If Catholics mobilized to demand ethical vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry would be forced to respond. If Catholics are content to say that they can be justified in using these vaccines, the injustice will continue" (Phil Lawler, 1/30/15).

In 2008, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reiterated that "danger to the health of children could permit parents to use a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin, while keeping in mind that everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available " (Instruction Dignitas Personae).

Urge Merck to offer alternative vaccines that are NOT derived from the tissue of aborted babies: https://www.change.org/p/centers-for-disease-control-urge-merck-to-revive-single-dose-measles-and-mumps-vaccines