Five inaccurate conclusions of the document “in defense of the baby to be born”

You have sent us a document titled Women’s voice in defence of the baby to be born and in opposition to the vaccines contaminated with the abortion, suposedly supported by 86 women from 25 countries affirming, among other things, that the production of vaccines has made the scientific community to look for aborted foetuses. This is false, as we already explained in this verification. The text is closed with five conclusions about vaccination. How much truth is there in each of them? We analyse it.

"Candidate vaccines that, as reported, use aborted fetal cells “only during the tests”, used HEK-293 cells [human-293 embrionary kidney] as an integral part of the development of its candidate mRNA"

The first point addresses the alleged use of “foetus aborted cells […] as integral part of the development of its (vaccine of) candidate mRNA”. This is MISLEADING. What has indeed been used in the development and production of some vaccines is a cell type coming from embrionary tissue, but they are not themselves foetal cells.

Vaccines are usually manufactured using cell lines, that is, laboratory cultures made of endlessly reproducing cells. In the case for those used by pharmaceutical companies manufacturing covid-19 vaccines, they were created decades ago using cells extracted from legally aborted foetuses.

Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca/Oxford have manufactured vaccines against covid-19 using the cell line known as HEK293, created from kidney cells extracted from a foetus legally aborted in 1973. 

"The vaccines candidates in question have not been rigorously tested for efficacy in preventing infection or transmission of SARS-CoV-2, but were evaluated for reduced symptoms severity in those who develop ‘confirmed cases’ of COVID-19"

This is MISLEADING. The clinical trials in phase I, II and III performed before the approval of the vaccines only centered in measuring in how much the severity of the disease in asymptomatic was reduced, but currently there are ongoing studies that are shedding results about if the vaccine also reduces the virus infectiousness and transmissibility.

When vaccines were not yet approved, the clinical trials were only centered in measuring how capable they were in reducing mortality and the most severe cases in controlled environments (clinical essays), leaving the observation of transmissibility and re-infection probability after having received the dose for when injections were approved and in full supply.

Once they were approved, transmissibility and reinfection capacity began also to be measured: that is, if in addition to being able to prevent the virus from killing, it prevents people from being re-infected and thus from transmitting the disease in turn. “Up to now, real-life studies point that, to a greater or lesser extent, vaccines avoid [also] the infection without symptoms”, points out José Antonio Navarro-Alonso, specialised in pediatric medicine, expert in covid-19 vaccination and one of the funder members of the Spanish Association of Vaccinology (AEV). This means that “they can prevent virus replication (less infectiousness), thus its dissemination to the contacts of the vaccinated person (less contagiousness) and, definitely, contribute to the emergence of a community protection”, he concludes.

"The average survival rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection is over 98,3T, and is not likely to be significantly affected by vaccines with such low efficacy"

Although the proportion given by this message between infected and dead is similar to the real (there have been in the world 153,6 confirmed infected people and 3,2 million of deaths by a mortality of 2,09% at 4 May 2021) the average of survival varies significatively with the age and previous pathologies, but also as a function of the testing capacity of each country (the most number of diagnosed asymptomatic, the more the morality falls for each identified case). Moreover, the efficacy of the vaccines have shown in the majority of cases to reduce to more than 80% the likelihood to suffer the most severe cases of the disease.

The mortality rate is extremely variable, and varies not only according to age, but also according to previous pathologies and the health conditions of the country in which one lives. Therefore, the survival rate for SARS-CoV-2 infection cannot be said to be higher than 98.3% in a systematic way. The global average is 97.9%.

Consequently, the subsequent reasoning —”it (mortality) is not likely to be affected by vaccines with such low efficacy”— is also not correct; in fact, it has been observed that the vaccine has not only efficacy but effectiveness: most severe disease is reduced in both controlled setting —clinical trials— and in real life, that is, it virtually eliminates the probability of dying due to covid-19. In Spanish nursing homes, for instance, vaccination has reduced mortality in 99,7%.

"The vaccine has between 5 or 10 fold probabilities of producing adverse reactions than the vaccines against flu, and cause between 15 and 26 fold more headaches, fatigue, and dizziness (according to VAERS data). The vaccine has also caused many severe reactions and numerous deaths. The safety data that have been gathered are insufficient to determine the possible effects in the long term."

These are MISLEADING data: yes, vaccines against covid-19 produce more side effects than others, but there is no data on how frequent they are compared to other vaccines and, in any case, the data obtained from VAERS has no real relevance because the database collects any adverse event after injection, whether the vaccine is involved or not. And, yes, the vaccine has caused a series of serious adverse effects, as the exceptional cases of venous thrombosis, due to which dozens of cases have had a fatal outcome. 

Vaccines against covid-19 are more reactogenic than average, that is, they generate more side effects than the rest: “Generally, it has been seen that all COVID-19 vaccines generate more side effects compared to other known vaccines, indicates Adelaida Sarukhan, immunologist and scientific writer at the Institute of Global Health in Barcelona (ISGlobal in Catalan), to Verificat. However, she adds, “the great majority of these effects are mild —headache, muscle pain, fatigue, local cutaneous reactions, etc…— and they disappear after a couple of days”

On the other side, data from the System to Report Adverse Reactions to the Vaccines (VAERS) are not valid because, as they state on their website, they are data on which “there is no certainty that the vaccine caused the problem”. In other words, it is a platform to alert the pharmacosurveillance system and monitor the various adverse reactions, but these are not conclusive data nor do they necessarily involve causality.

"The experimental nature of the vaccine makes urging, coercing, or forcing people to take it a direct violation of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights"

This statement is false for two reasons: first, because the vaccine does not have an experimental nature, but has been approved according to the current legislation and through the regulatory procedures of phased clinical trials; second, because vaccination is not mandatory, although it is required in some countries, contexts or to develop certain jobs.

None of the approved vaccines for use by the different drug regulatory agencies are being supplied without first going through all the phases of the clinical trials, needed to prove that the vaccines are safe.

Another thing is that the technology used by certain vaccines, such as those of mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna), is novel and has never been used in humans before. The mRNA vaccines do not use attenuated or inactivated viruses, as it has been traditionally done, but are made with part of the messenger RNA of the virus causing the disease (hence the name), and they reach the cells covered by a lipid envelope (a kind of little fatty bag which avoids its destruction), but in the end they reach the same effect: the body recognises the proteins of SARS-CoV-2 to trigger an immune response and defeat the virus in case it infects us.

On the other side, the population is not yet being obliged to receive the vaccine, although it is indeed mandatory to access certain services or job positions. For instance, in the US more and more universities require it as a mandatory requirement to go to school; in Italy, having it is a sine qua non condition to work as a pharmacist or health professional.