by N. R. M. Roshak
(Canada)
Thank you for the music teaching resources! I wanted to write to let you know of a mistake on this page in the NON-musical, NON-teaching discussion. You wrote:
"I have a 4-page Table from 2017 that includes MORE ingredients, including the human fetal tissue elements, which can be identified by the terms "human albumin," "MRC-5", "human diploid cells", and "WI-38". The MRC-5 was a little boy; the WI-38 was a Swedish baby girl."
First, you are absolutely correct that the original cells for the WI-38 and MRC-5 cell lines came from a aborted fetuses. WI-38 is a cell line created from a 3-month-old aborted fetus, and MRC-5 from a 2-week-old aborted male fetus. They were both created in the 1960s, before "ethics review panels" were a thing. The two fetuses weren't aborted for vaccine reasons, and these cell lines weren't created for vaccines; but cells descended from them (by many, many, many generations!) are now used to grow viruses for vaccines. (These cell lines are also used for other medical research as well.)
The mistake I'm writing you about is that these WI-38 cells are not INCLUDED in the vaccine. They are used to produce the viruses that go into the vaccine. You can see this in the ingredients list you quoted:
"Measles virus1 Enders' Edmonston strain (live, attenuated) ……….not less than 1x103 CCID50*
Mumps virus1 Jeryl Lynn™ Level B strain (live, attenuated)………not less than 12.5x103 CCID50*
Rubella virus2 Wistar RA 27/3 strain (live, attenuated) ………………….not less than 1x103 CCID50*
*50% cell culture infectious dose
1 produced in chick embryo cells.
2 produced in WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts."
Please note that it says "produced in" WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts. To make the vaccine, they first make a cell culture of these lung cells, then infect the culture with the virus. Only the virus goes into the vaccine, not the cells themselves. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_fetal_tissue_in_vaccine_development)
Thank you again for the resources!
Dana: Hi, N.R.M., I felt that your point was important enough to place it in the main body of the page "Autism and Music", so that is where you will find it, along with my reply to your thoughtful letter.