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Promising ethical vaccines to fight COVID-19 have advanced to the later stages of testing.
Dr. Nita Patel, director of antibody discovery and vaccine development, lifts a vial March 20 with a potential coronavirus vaccine at Novavax labs in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Novavax is one of the labs developing a vaccine for COVID-19. (photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — More than 300 vaccines are currently in development to fight the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic and approximately 40 have already advanced to clinical trials — and among those, there are a number that are ethically derived without the use of any cell lines derived from tissues harvested from aborted babies.
The availability of morally acceptable coronavirus vaccines is a top priority for pro-life leaders, and for faithful Catholics. “My concern is that we have at least one choice that is ethically produced,” Dr. David Prentice, vice president and research director for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told the Register.
According to The New York Times’ Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker, there are 27 vaccines worldwide in Phase 1 safety trials (small sets of people), 14 vaccines in Phase 2 (expanded trials involving hundreds of participants), and nine vaccines in Phase 3 efficacy trials, which involve thousands of participants and are necessary to catch potential adverse effects not caught in the smaller studies. The Times’ count captures vaccines that have combined Phase 1-2 or Phase 2-3 clinical trials.
In the vanguard of vaccine development in the U.S. are eight potential vaccines backed by the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed (OWS), a private-public partnership that has already spent $10 billion in an effort to bring a COVID-19 vaccine to the general public by 2021.
As these vaccines are brought rapidly through testing phases to production, the most significant ethical concern for Catholics has been striving to ensuring that any vaccines being produced have no complicity in abortion. Another significant issue is ensuring that vaccine trials are not compromised, in terms of their safety and effectiveness, by a rush to bring them prematurely to market.
The vaccines in Operation Warp Speed all rely on new technologies that allow them to be tested and come to production much earlier than traditional methods that developed vaccines from viruses cultivated in cell tissue. Prentice explained that unlike traditional methods of creating vaccines, the different methods utilized in Operation Warp Speed involve making proteins, not the whole virus, “like putting a face on a wanted poster … so if a virus does infect you the immune system is ready to slap it down.”
Continued below.
Will Ethical COVID Vaccines Arrive at Warp Speed?
Dr. Nita Patel, director of antibody discovery and vaccine development, lifts a vial March 20 with a potential coronavirus vaccine at Novavax labs in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Novavax is one of the labs developing a vaccine for COVID-19. (photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — More than 300 vaccines are currently in development to fight the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic and approximately 40 have already advanced to clinical trials — and among those, there are a number that are ethically derived without the use of any cell lines derived from tissues harvested from aborted babies.
The availability of morally acceptable coronavirus vaccines is a top priority for pro-life leaders, and for faithful Catholics. “My concern is that we have at least one choice that is ethically produced,” Dr. David Prentice, vice president and research director for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told the Register.
According to The New York Times’ Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker, there are 27 vaccines worldwide in Phase 1 safety trials (small sets of people), 14 vaccines in Phase 2 (expanded trials involving hundreds of participants), and nine vaccines in Phase 3 efficacy trials, which involve thousands of participants and are necessary to catch potential adverse effects not caught in the smaller studies. The Times’ count captures vaccines that have combined Phase 1-2 or Phase 2-3 clinical trials.
In the vanguard of vaccine development in the U.S. are eight potential vaccines backed by the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed (OWS), a private-public partnership that has already spent $10 billion in an effort to bring a COVID-19 vaccine to the general public by 2021.
As these vaccines are brought rapidly through testing phases to production, the most significant ethical concern for Catholics has been striving to ensuring that any vaccines being produced have no complicity in abortion. Another significant issue is ensuring that vaccine trials are not compromised, in terms of their safety and effectiveness, by a rush to bring them prematurely to market.
The vaccines in Operation Warp Speed all rely on new technologies that allow them to be tested and come to production much earlier than traditional methods that developed vaccines from viruses cultivated in cell tissue. Prentice explained that unlike traditional methods of creating vaccines, the different methods utilized in Operation Warp Speed involve making proteins, not the whole virus, “like putting a face on a wanted poster … so if a virus does infect you the immune system is ready to slap it down.”
Continued below.
Will Ethical COVID Vaccines Arrive at Warp Speed?
