Listening to an Ancient Faith Radio (AFR) Podcast on the Covid-19 vaccines (Part 1), an interview between Fr. John Parker and Dr. Ryan Sampson Nash, reminded me of that feeling you get when the rug is unexpectedly pulled out from under your feet, only in the Twilight Zone. You don’t believe what just happened, but after being momentarily suspended in mid-air, instead of finding yourself back on the floor, you find yourself in an entirely different world.
Fr. John Parker is the Dean of St. Tikhon’s Theological Seminary “where Saints have walked.” He introduced Dr. Ryan Sampson Nash MD MA, as a Medical Doctor and Orthodox Christian who does clinical work in advanced cancer care. He also holds several prestigious positions in the area of Bioethics, in which he also consults.
I was pleased to hear Dr. Nash admit that he is “a sinner” (as everyone is) and is “neither Bishop nor any rank of the clergy.” It is here, I believe, where St. Tikhon’s Theological Seminary made two critical errors. Since Dr. Nash is a not a member of the clergy, an Orthodox Bishop with a strong Orthodox phronema (mindset) and ethos should have been invited to participate in the podcast to balance the secular/scientific and personal opinions of Dr. Nash. No matter how highly credentialed he may be in his field, he spoke as a scientist would speak. The eternal and timeless wisdom of our Holy Orthodox Church was desperately needed and sorely lacking during that interview, since Dr. Nash, despite identifying as “Orthodox,” did not bring an Orthodox perspective to the podcast.
The second error made by the Seminary’s Dean, Fr. John Parker, was to prejudice the podcast in advance by encouraging the listener to “trust” a scientist like Dr. Nash, rather than our God-given Holy Scripture and the teachings of our Holy Church Fathers and Saints, some of whom “walked” at St. Tikhon’s Seminary – “for the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men” (1 Corinthians 1:25). The reasons given for this “trust” included the medical credentials of Dr. Nash and his claim to be an Orthodox Christian, but the end result of the bias was to elevate the secular altar of science above the divine altar of God – not something one would expect from the dean of an Orthodox Seminary.
These two errors at the outset – promoting the opinions of an (albeit highly educated) lay person before his opinions are even made known, with no Orthodox Theological counter-balance – can only set the stage to bias the listener – an arguably unethical way of presenting a topic in “Bioethics.” In this case, the bias was to present the use of fetal cell lines in the development and/or testing of the Covid-19 vaccines as a moral dilemma of small proportion because we already live in a world tainted with fetal cell lines. In other words, these cells have already been used for several decades in the development and/or testing of other drugs and products making this a well-established practice. Therefore, there is no point in resisting taking a Covid-19 vaccine on these grounds, since the abominable, but pre-existing and far-reaching use of these cell lines, greatly overshadows their use in just one more product (a vaccine), rendering the vaccine of minimal ethical importance. A similar justification was made by Josef Stalin, when he said, “the death of one man is a tragedy, but the death of millions is a statistic.”
This same argument is being used by a hospital system in Arkansas, and by the US Military Coast Guard to deny individuals Covid-19 vaccine exemptions on grounds of religion, ethics or conscience. In the podcast, Dr. Nash echoes the same religious exemption narrative. However, this new narrative is also coming from someone claiming to be an Orthodox Christian, and even from the Orthodox Dean of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.
To be fair, perhaps Fr. Parker encouraged the listeners to trust Dr. Nash believing the podcast was going to unfold differently, and perhaps he was just as shocked as I was and couldn’t find the right words to respond right away when Dr. Nash’s message became clearer. It even took me some time to collect and process my own thoughts and reaction to respond myself, which is why this article comes a bit late.
And yet, this is not what pulled the rug out from under my feet, as I have grown wearily accustomed by now to the “new normal” of apostate clergy, corrupt church officials and unethical governments and regulating bodies who scratch each others’ backs.
What threw me into the air was the disclosure that many commonly used drugs, like Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Aspirin, Claritin, Benadryl, Albuterol, Pepto Bismol, Tums, Lipitor, Senokot, Motrin, Maalox, Ex-Lax, Sudafed, Prilosec, Preparation H and Zoloft – to name a few, because Dr. Nash rattled off several others as well – all involve the use of aborted fetal cell lines! My knee jerk reaction was utter disbelief, followed by a dash to my computer to search the product monographs of some of these products.
Before computers and the Internet made their way into our medical practices, the product monograph of every available drug was meticulously described in the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (CPS), a Canadian drug reference for health professionals. This reference was a huge tome, about the size of a telephone book, that was updated and circulated each year to provide the most detailed and up-to-date information on all available drugs in Canada, for their safe and appropriate prescribing. It sat on every doctor’s desk as the drug “bible” until the Internet finally replaced it.
All physicians still heavily rely on product monographs to check the nominal details of any drug, but during the 35 years of my medical career, I have never found any mention of fetal cell lines in the product monograph of any drug, except for one hint in the product monograph of Merck’s M-M-R II vaccine – the rubella portion is “propagated in human diploid lung fibroblasts.” A quick Internet search of “human diploid lung fibroblasts” confirms that these cells belong to the WI-38 cell line derived from the lung tissue of a 3-month-gestation aborted female fetus. However, the product monographs of Tylenol, Ibuprofen and so on, make no mention of the use of aborted fetal cell lines. Even if one targets Google with “is Tylenol made using fetal cell lines” or something similar, this information does not come up.
What does come up is an article published in Church Life Journal (of all places) as recently as March 19, 2021, which mentions the HEK293 cell line that Dr. Nash also mentioned in his podcast. The article begins as follows:
We have learned, in the last few months, a lot about the cell line HEK293, derived from the remains of an unborn child in the Netherlands in 1973. Not only is it the most common cell line used in vaccine production and testing (even the synthetic mRNA vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer had recourse to it in testing), but it is, apparently, ubiquitous in modern life. Our homes are chock full of products at least tested on HEK293, from drugs (almost all of them, in fact) to processed food to cosmetics. Avoiding every product with any connection whatsoever to HEK293 is virtually impossible.
Just click on the last hyperlink above to read the January 28, 2021 edition of the newsletter Through Catholic Lenses, and you, too, may find yourself falling back down, not on the floor, but in an entirely different reality. You will see a long list of very familiar drugs, including the much talked-about Ivermectin and Remdesivir. By searching “fetal cell lines” on the internet, you will also discover several sites from where anyone can purchase some…for just a few thousand dollars. The more one searches, the more sordid the whole (literal) business of aborted fetal cell lines becomes, something else Dr. Nash failed to mention in his “bioethics” podcast.
I am still reeling from the discovery that we have only just learned about our society’s thoroughly systemic use of fetal cell lines “in the last few months.” And yet, were it not for this AFR podcast and the vaccine exemption statements of the Arkansas hospital system and the US Coast Guard – attempts to render support for the pro-jab narrative in the name of “bioethics” – we would still be in the dark. Thanks to Covid, the systemic and sordid fetal cell business is finally being revealed to the general public, including the average medical professional, such as myself, all because the old narrative had to find a new narrative that could justify the denial of religious vaccine exemption letters to people of conscience.
Aborted fetal cells aside, this whole issue of religious exemptions from the Covid-19 vaccine has uncovered another bioethical problem which Dr. Nash failed to mention – the problem of UNinformed consent. Why is there no readily available product information on the use of aborted fetal cell lines? Why are most of our drugs and products, even essential drugs like insulin, predominantly derived using aborted fetal cell lines in the first place?
Every product label known to man touts its so-called purity from “gluten free” to “low sodium” to “free range” to “without antibiotics” to “grass fed” to “halal” to “kosher” to “air chilled” to “low fat” to “caffeine-free”…but NO product label has ever advertised “no aborted fetal cell lines have been used in the development or testing of this product.” No mention of this detail, when the use of aborted fetal cell lines has become so systemic, is NOT ethical or fair to anyone – not to people of conscience, not to any religious groups, not to vegans or vegetarians, not to anyone.
Even the training of physicians to “inform” their patients on the risks, benefits, efficacy and cost of a prescribed drug involves a type of narrative that has never included a discussion on ethical sourcing, which suddenly takes on a whole new meaning. This whole issue of product development and use based on UNinformed consent was the gaping hole in Dr. Nash’s podcast on “bioethics” that forever altered my reality. I say “gaping hole” because Dr. Nash never mentioned it.
Right behind the gaping hole followed the second issue – Dr. Nash’s suggestion that since we already live in an abortion-tainted society – in other words, since we have all consumed products made using aborted fetal cell lines – now that we have been informed of this shocking reality, we should all realize that there is essentially no difference in taking just one more such product – a Covid-19 vaccine. Is the implication here that if one is opposed to elective abortions, one still bears inherent guilt in the practice of abortion because one has already (unknowingly) benefited one way or another from products made using aborted fetal cells? Does this make those who seek a vaccine exemption on religious grounds hypocrites since they have already used other drugs tainted with aborted fetal cells? This, apparently, is the angle – the new narrative – used by the US Coast Guard, the Arkansas Health System (and apparently also Fr. Parker and Dr. Nash) to deny people a religious vaccine exemption. Is this ethical?
How do I, as a prescriber, deal with this new ethical dilemma when I must ensure informed consent is being given for every prescribed treatment? Do I pretend I don’t know anything and stick to the prescribing narrative I was taught in medical school; or do I pass the burden of the problem of the abortion tainted drug that my patient desperately needs to my conscientious patient and give my patient the impossible decision, between suffering physically by not taking the drug or suffering psychologically by taking an abortion-tainted drug that can relieve their physical suffering? Which of those two approaches is ethical? The problem is that neither approach is ethical because the first option does not provide informed consent and the second option gives a suffering patient NO option between a tainted or untainted drug because ALL drug options are tainted. Bioethicist, Dr. Nash, who pulled the rug by exposing this new ethical dilemma did not address it in the least. We only heard one narrative from him – basically that the use of aborted fetal cell lines is unfortunate but it’s systemic, so we should get used to it and move on.
But what about CHOICE? Do bioethics not support choice? Where are these ethics when society allows a woman to choose between keeping or aborting her baby but does not allow a consumer to choose whether or not the product he/she consumes is derived from the cells of that aborted baby? Is this lack of choice ethical? It is absolutely NOT ethical, which is why I fully expected Dr. Nash, in his podcast, to describe how he, as a prominent bioethicist who self-identifies as Orthodox, was working towards advocating for that CHOICE. Even God gives us choices between good and evil and every grey area in between. How can we claim to live in a free society when the use of aborted fetal cell lines has become so systemic, thanks in part to the concealment of their use for so long, that when it comes down to choosing an ethically sourced drug, there is no choice?
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It seems that our God-given free will, expressed through freedom of choice, has been taken away incrementally, first passively, through the concealment of the systemic use of aborted fetal cells in science and research, and now actively through vaccine mandates. The loss of one freedom is used to justify the loss of another. I will not ask Dr. Nash if this is ethical. I will just say that hypocrisy has become the new norm when the abolishment of systemic racism is on everyone’s agenda, while the abolishment of the systemic exploitation of aborted children is ignored. We know how to weep and drop the flags at half-mast when we discover the remains of innocent indigenous residential school children in unmarked graves, but we shout from the rooftops to defend the killing of innocent and defenseless babes in the womb who never get to see the light of day. Who is the hypocrite? Is it still the conscientious objector to the aborted fetal cell derived Covid-19 vaccine? I don’t know what a bioethical response to this question might be, because now we have crossed over from secular “bioethics” to divine judgement. My own Orthodox response would be that we are all, more or less, hypocrites, and we all need to repent, begging God for his great mercy, not just for our individual sins, but collectively as a society and for the sins of our neighbour.
The fact remains, however, that it is not ethical to use fear or guilt to pressure or manipulate anyone into consuming an unwanted product. Doing so strips the other of their dignity and their humanity because it takes away their freedom of choice. The good news is that there are still some choices we can make.
- We can choose to raise awareness around the bioethical issues at hand.
- We can choose to advocate for transparency on the development, manufacturing and testing of all drugs, cosmetics, skin care products, foods and so on. Transparency enables informed consent.
- We can choose to advocate for clear aborted fetal cell line use labeling on all products.
- We can choose to advocate for starting non-aborted human cell lines from placenta, umbilical cord blood, tumour cells, adult donor stem cells or other ethical sources to replace current aborted fetal cell lines. We can start by writing letters like this one, to pharmaceutical companies, encouraging them to switch away from using aborted fetal cell lines in their research, development and testing.
- We can choose to lobby governments for new legislation banning the sale of aborted fetal body parts and aborted fetal cell lines.
- We can choose to switch from using common over-the-counter drug store remedies to naturopathic remedies.
- We can choose to simplify and naturalize our use of cosmetics, skin care products and foods since many of these, especially processed ones, are also derived using aborted fetal cell lines.
Choosing to become more aware, more selective more responsible and more vocal consumers will send a clear message to all companies to operate more ethically, because one tainted drug does not justify another; one aborted fetal cell line does not justify another; and one murdered (let’s be realistic) baby only justifies another in the monstrous world of Stalin. This is what I expected Fr. Parker and Dr. Nash to say as Orthodox priest and Orthodox bioethicist in their Covid-19 vaccine Orthodox podcast, but Kyle Christopher McKenna, PhD says it better in his article Use of Aborted Fetal Tissue in Vaccines and Medical Research Obscures the Value of All Human Life:
Each medical benefit or scientific advance from the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions desensitizes beneficiaries, scientists, and doctors to the original evil act that produced these cells. Aborted fetal tissues used in laboratories are minimized to merely human cells, and the human beings whose lives were taken to provide those cells become irrelevant and with time forgotten. Of greatest concern is that desensitization ultimately leads to scandal by erroneously validating elective abortions for a greater good. Without careful oversight, the fetus could become, like fetal tissue cell lines, merely cells, cultured within the uterus for scientific exploration. All people of good conscience have the responsibility to voice opposition to the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions in order to promote development of alternatives, affirm the value of all human life, and limit scandal.
Irene Polidoulis MD CCFP FCFP
Assistant Professor, Department of Family & Community Medicine and member of the Orthodox Church in Canada
Update 10/7/2020: It is amazing, in God’s time all things are revealed. A Pfizer whistleblower details that the company wanted to cover up the use of fetal cells. Just like all the other companies have tried to , but now we know the truth. Watch the video here, PFIZER WHISTLEBLOWER LEAKS EXECS EMAILS: ‘WE WANT TO AVOID HAVING INFO ON FETAL CELLS OUT THERE’
The Spirit of Dr. Sam Bailey:
https://odysee.com/@drsambailey:c/conscience-and-vaccines:e
The Spirit of Dr. Tess Lawrie:
https://www.oraclefilms.com/alettertoandrewhill
The Spirit of St. Tikhon’s:
https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/sost/covid_and_the_vaccines
Axios Dr. P.! Unmercenary healers are in short supply and most needed now. Glad you pointed out that many docs have been equally shocked. Now that they are aware, may they join the pro-lifers who have long known about this, repent, and change their practice and advice. We also need to realize that anyone in med school or science thereafter have been brainwashed by corporate pharma, equally distressing; realizing we have been fooled and manipulated is a blow to the ego, blinding many. Yes thank God for this unseemly interview which prompted you to seek info and know and reveal the truth. May all follow your lead.
Two points:
Adult stem cell option:
The US Conference of Bishops has entreated the drug companies to use adult stem cells for testing and drug development, very doable BUT more expensive. When we consider the billions of dollars in profit corporate pharma achieves, we can see the passion of greed ascendant. Has the Assembly of Orthodox Bishops requested same?
Regeneron Monoclonal Antibodies (EUA oft-recommended infusion):
Also tested against aborted fetal cell lines.
Please see my other comment about the Charlotte Lozier Institute, established in 2011, https://lozierinstitute.org/about/ that promotes and conducts ethical research.
Their Mission:The goal of the Charlotte Lozier Institute is to promote deeper public understanding of the value of human life, motherhood, and fatherhood, and to identify policies and practices that will protect life and serve both women’s health and family well-being. Our profound conviction is that the insights available through the best science, sociology and psychology cannot help but demonstrate that each and every human is not only “fearfully and wonderfully made” but blessed to be born at this time in human history.
We desire and seek that the benefits of modern medicine and the wealth of nations be put to the service of human life and that the scourges of abortion, physical disease, euthanasia and human exploitation will be diminished and ultimately overcome. Our intention is to work closely with the full array of existing groups dedicated to parallel purposes – to provide them with information of the highest quality that will assist them in their tasks of public advocacy, legal argument, and social action. We will do so while remaining faithful to the best methodologies and standards, inviting and accepting debate in the pursuit of our goals so that our work earns the highest degree of public trust and respect.
These and other topics will be addressed through policy papers, conferences, editorials and blogs written by experts in each area of endeavor. Because of the policy experience of our leadership and associated experts, we believe that we will be able to bring compelling data and arguments to the attention of national, state and local decision-makers when they need them most.
Under STEM CELLS they write:
In the decades-long controversy over stem cell research, misinformation abounds. From a medical perspective, the debate is settled: research that destroys human embryos has not produced a single validated treatment for any disease, much less delivered on sweeping promises of miraculous cures. Adult stem cells, harvested ethically from sources like bone marrow and umbilical cord blood, as well as induced pluripotent stem cells created by the reengineering of body cells, are already saving lives and revolutionizing medicine. CLI has extensively documented the validated, peer-reviewed science on adult stem cells, making the case that policy leaders have a responsibility to put the patient first and fund therapies with a proven record of success.
This shows that successful and ethical research IS possible. Therefore, the driver behind unethical research can only be $$$$$$$$$$$$$. We don’t need aborted baby parts for good science and medicines – Abortion is an industry. Father Parker may be ignorant of this sobering fact but someone in Dr. Nash’s position shouldn’t be.
Below are a few of my notes as I listened to the talk.
There were a number of inconsistencies and questionable statements throughout. As the talk was numbered as “-(minus total length) X-number” I will list some of those points as -69.05 as an example.
He states that many of those who are commenting about the virus are neophytes and new to medical ethics so do not listen to them. “I have been doing this for 20 years having studied medical ethics” (-69.). This is also connected to an answer give during the Q&A section (-21) where the question is asked about various elders and modern saints. He basically says, “stay in your own wheelhouse” (-63). Here Dr. Nash is venturing into Christian bioethics and dismisses those who do not hold his own credentials. There is a slight nod to others who hold opposing positions, yet this is nearly completely dismissed because the CDC and FDA has so much data to corroborate. I have listened to other medical doctors and bioethicists who come to different results and those who believe that the data is both wrong and/or incomplete or misleading.
He states that all medicine has side-effects and that he and many doctors have knowingly done harm to patients (-66) yet justifies it by saying that all doctors do it.
He states that these vaccines have an overwhelming aid against disease and death (-64.26) yet where is the proof? Later, he said we don’t know the results of the trials because not enough time has passed (-11). Yet, he said that the vaccine was approved because there is such a large sample (no reference time here). He stated that typically there are tens of thousands of people to study over long periods of time yet here we have millions within a short period of time. Still, there is no study of long-term effect.
On the subject of HEK (-60), “most scientists don’t care” (-54) “the tissue culture should give every Orthodox Christian pause” (-59), yet he justifies it anyway in that it (HEK) is in everything, some Orthodox support it (-53.40), and it is everywhere so we might as well give in (-53). I find this section the most troubling. Dr. Nash says that in medicine, there is almost always a questionable origin and that the HEK strain is used in everything and that compromises are continually made. One reference was made that the computer that one is using is most likely helping to fund evil somewhere by its profits.
My take-away from the presentation was that while he was a clear and concise speaker, there was a distinct distrust and negative view of any other view than his own. He challenges the listener to seek discernment and discard the views of those whom disagree with Dr. Nash, even if they have “St.” before their name rather than “Dr.” (-21). There was a troubling lack of humility to the whole talk. He brushed off one of the questioners’ query about mistakes that were stated early on and continue (such as: masks don’t work/masks do work, children don’t spread/children do spread, the vaccine is harmless/many reports of harm and death have been reported, etc—my note). I have listened to about 20 of these talks from both pro and anti this vaccine sent to me by doctors, lay people, and clergy. All of the talks were from doctors with many years experience in their fields, not much different from Dr. Nash. There were many things that troubled me about his presentation and it does not sway my hesitance regarding this particular vaccine effort. Just a few of my thoughts
Amen Fr David. Thank you very much. And now…sigh…Fr John P and the good Dr are doubling down with another St Tikhon’s livestream lecture on Oct 14. What a joke.
Fr John Parker and Dr Ryan Nash already doubled down in a second episode: Covid and Vaccines – Part Two https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/sost/covid_and_vaccines_part_two
If Fr John Parker was caught off guard in the first episodes, the fact that he came back for a second round and handed over the microphone for most of a second hour with no serious push back on his guest makes it clear his position, or at least a position he is willing to allowed advocated on his watch.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN:
The Truth About Fetal Tissue Research
Dec 7, 2015
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-fetal-tissue-research/
I would like to clarify my comment above. The link to the Scientific American article “The Truth About Fetal Cell Research” shows how much aborted baby parts are prevalent in research today. How these babies are harvested and used is quite horrific. However, there is one paragraph in the article which gives me some hope. It states:
“Opponents argue that the work is not necessary because other model systems and techniques can be used. “This is antiquated science,” says David Prentice [about fetal cells], the vice-president and research director at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, which is an anti-abortion organization in Washington DC. “There are better and, frankly, more successful alternatives.”
I would love to hear an interview featuring David Prentice to learn more about how they do ethical research at the Charlotte Lozier Institute and what challenges they may be facing, such as getting funding for their work. It sounds like they may be the only ethical research centre in the US.
If it is possible to do good research without the use of aborted fetal cell lines, this was another serious omission by Dr. Nash which implied that fetal cell lines are the only way to go about conducting scientific research.
OCA holy synod’s statement from 2001 still applies yet they continue to ignore it. And not a word in support of those risking their jobs to refuse vaccination on sincere religious grounds, often the same religious grounds that the OCA gave in its 2001 statement.
“…We cannot, however, condone the manipulation of embryonic cells in any form for research purposes, including lines developed from destroyed embryos. Rather, we can only express dismay at the fact that the debate over this issue has avoided major considerations regarding the very meaning and value of human life.
President Bush’s proposal to use only the existing sixty lines of stem cells2 because the embryos had already been destroyed (i.e., killed) falters on the precept enunciated by the apostle Paul in Romans 3:8, “We may not do evil so that good may come.” The very act of destroying those embryos is evil, and we may not profit from evil even to achieve a good and noble end.
… Research on existing stem cell lines should be prohibited for the simple reason that those embryos should never have been created in the first place. The moral line has been crossed, and Mr. Bush’s proposed limitations do little to prevent an inevitable descent down an increasingly slippery slope.””
I would love to hear another discussion of the bioethics of the COVID injection this time featuring Dr. Polidoulis and Fr. Kosmas who is laboring to analyze and understand the issue from a traditionalist Orthodox perspective:
https://www.orthodoxtalks.com/for-the-orthodox-faithful-who-are-confused-about-covid-vaccines/#four
We must keep in mind brothers and sisters. Fr. Parker and Dr. Nash are not independent actors. They were directed–or at the very least allowed–to make this obvious pro-vaccine statement. As always, somebody hidden pulls the strings; Fr. Parker and Dr. Nash were the “fall guys” in all this; but yet were complicit in what will over time be obvious as very bad judgement as this post points out. This is how tyranny works; it distinguishes true fathers (who come out of their ivory towers of isolation), from manipulators and hirelings. Rather than coming out and doing the dirty work themselves, they put others up to the task; couch it in a doctor’s authority, but in reality the doctor has no real authority in the Church but is channeling the opinions and authority of someone hidden who does have that authority. Somebody behind the curtain, runs the controls, and that man/men cannot be trusted with the precious cargo (souls, and bodies of the people) of the Church; too many mis-directions like Dr Nash’s interview. How can it be otherwise.
Modern medicine is the modern Golden Calf that nearly all society, and many in Orthodoxy worship, depend upon,dance before, and sacrifice their money to, their piety to, and their children to. The more we go along the more this becomes obvious.
By God’s design, this melee demonstrates God bringing about the promise to put emnity between the Seed of the Woman (Christ, The Church) and seed of the serpent to achieve separation, purification, and sanctification; there must be clarity, and now clarity is coming. A sorting is underway whether we like it or not. Choose you this day who you will serve.
My predictions for the future: 1. People will take control of their own health issues, and seek out God’s means (natural) of healing and health. Simply taking ease that you have health insurance is not enough. Unhealthy lifestyle (e.g. obesity) kills and God expects you to take care of the carcass He gave you, stop abusing your body with bad food, bad medicine, bad vaccines, and bad discipline. 2. I predict a resurgence in Divine Healing. Where sin (sickness) abounds, God’s grace more abounds. Just because you have a bad diagnosis, does not mean you will succumb; ask, seek, and knock until you have God’s solutions (which might be a doctor, but maybe not). Walking in God’s ways brings natural health because it disarms the inner conflict sin brings 3. At the same time, the Church will experience its greatest opportunities to plant churches, evangelize the lost, and show the Protestants the more perfect way (Acts 18:26). During this time of strong distractions, those who can move the Church forward, will see great gains, its always been that way. The Church flourishes during adversity.
You seemed to have missed the point and accept the false narrative that basic medicines such as Tylenol, Advil and Aspirin relied on aborted fetal cell lines in a way that’s comparable to the COVID-19 vaccines. It should be obvious that this is not the case. Bayer launched Aspirin in 1897 but the HEK293 cell line was harvested in 1973. It should be obvious, then, that any testing done on aborted cell lines for products like Aspirin are accidental to the medication. It’s an example of wicked doctors testing viable and ethical medications in unethical ways.
The same is not true for the COVID-19 vaccines. mRNA-based COVID vaccines, and the broader technology itself, relied on aborted fetal cells for development and validation.
HEK293 cells were used for spike protein sequencing and mRNA expression (i.e., the mRNA code that triggers COVID spike protein production). This is validated by a pre-clinical study that was jointly published by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Moderna in August 2020. More specifically, both Pfizer and Moderna utilize the CoV-2 spike glycoprotein, developed in HEK 293 cells, to pattern synthetic mRNA in the Covid-19 vaccines.
In addition, HEK293 cells were used to develop the lipid nanoparticle delivery system that underlies the technology. Lipid nanoparticles are the fatty molecular envelopes that help strands of mRNA — the genetic messenger for making DNA code into proteins — evade the body’s biological gatekeepers and reach their target cell without being degraded.
This is the very foundation/basis of the mRNA technology. This is why publications such as Newsweek openly acknowledged that “Fetal-cell lines played a vital role in the development of all three vaccines.” I don’t need to go into the role of PER.C6 in the development, testing, validation and manufacturing of the J&J vaccine.
So no, Tylenol, Advil and Aspirin do not rely on aborted fetal cells the way that the COVID-19 vaccines do. Aborted fetal cells were essential to the development of the vaccines and the underlying technology.
Emil,
Excellent perspective! This helps.
Unfortunately though, you weren’t on that podcast as well, to “balance” Dr. Nash’s narrative and help reduce the ensuing confusion. It was Dr. Nash who first rattled off the “pharma list” quoted in this article, right? This also supports the view that this “Orthodox ethicist” has contributed to unnecessary confusion now.
So, Emil, you are correct about those medicines.
They were tested incidentally and they are not at all in the same category as medicines relying on aborted fetal cells for development and testing. This was a thread between us and Dr. Hermina Nedelescu who helped push vaccines for the Orthodox Theological Society:
https://twitter.com/Hermina_HN/status/1431401807599730688
She references a paper published about an experiment done in 2015 on Aspirin using HEK cells. We, of course, called her out on that.
If you haven’t, you should also look at our other response from a nurse to the AFR podcast which is here: https://orthodoxreflections.com/answering-afr-on-covid-and-the-vaccines-with-fr-john-parker-and-dr-ryan-sampson-nash/
The nurse really called out the problem of “over reporting” aborted fetal cell line usage:
So here is what I would say:
My goodness:
Imagine the force for change that Bayer might have served to be in the final analysis for the Republic, had the accidental proliferation of fetal cell line technology and amorally wicked scientists actually been enabled successfully to come together with the incidental near-absolute lack of ease of legal prosecutorial agency against the alleged crime of abortion in the Netherlands in the early 1890s:
The possibility for unfathomably immense change for humanity might have been nigh unto incalculable, as a result.
Be that as it may,however;
All that we appear to have ended up being left with today in this world, unfortunately, is the overall insupportable situational social phenomenon of the unique binary-choice set of people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures,
and the Dutch.
We live in strange times…
As a side note for anyone Trying to get a religious exemption, you should not be arguing with your employer over questions like the one on the coast guard doc above. State your case and the pertinent laws, which exist from the constitution down to most state health codes, and then decline to be pushed into a corner. Peggy hall has a great series on how to deal with the questions on youtube.
IMO almost all of western medicine is a cult and most practices offer harm. None of those medications on the list have to be taken- there are safe- natural- clean preparations you can literally grow in your yard. It is time for Christianity to expose scientism and medical religion for what it is.
If aborted fetal cell tissue is so ubiquitous, is mitigation not a legitimate justification for refusal?? Under these new revelations, if we just make an attempt to avoid as many medications which were tested with fetal cell tissue, isn’t that enough? If we decide, with our God given judgement, that the risk or imposition of not taking any single medication is not great enough to overcome our conscience, why would that not be acceptable?
That might be an option for anyone over 18 years old. For those under 18, the government decides what is best. This is a result of “precedence of refusal of modern medicine” that Scientologists and others had attempted over the years…Modern laws authorize the government to put parents in jail and take custody of minors if the guardians refuse “proper” medical treatment for them.
There is no way you become a “prestigious” scientist these days without contributing to the science. Unfortunately, Science has always been fundamentally atheist in its “unbiased” research approach, so it’s not a surprise that Dr. Nash’s positions are aligned with science…
But he did side-step a core Orthodox question…a comparison of today’s debate about the use of cloned / aborted fetal cells in the testing process of many “products” against that famous New Testament debate surrounding the ειδωλοθυτα (Christians consuming by-products of sacrificial offerings of that era). If abortions are equivalent to modern-era, state sponsored “legal human sacrifices” are there Canonical parallels in this case, or not? Does the position that cells are not actually contained in any of the actual “consumed product” make this a totally different ethical dilemma? Would it make a difference if they tested against “certified” non-aborted fetal cells or not? Many questions…few answers…even fewer “Orthodox” ethicists to actually answer them.
Alexander,
You write:
“ Unfortunately, Science has always been fundamentally atheist in its “unbiased” research approach.”
Fundamentally atheist? Always?
https://thonyc.wordpress.com/
https://historyforatheists.com/the-great-myths/
Fundamentally atheist, now? This is a quote from a recent post on the “Doctors for Covid Ethics” website, a group that includes, in addition to medical doctors, also some full-fledged scientists:
“ Hapless and defenceless children are now becoming victims of the blasphemic and negligently regulated vaccination agenda.” (https://doctors4covidethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Letter-and-Notice-of-Liability-to-EMA-and-MEPs.pdf )
So: They speak of a “blasphemic” vaccination agenda. To use the term “blasphemic” presupposes at least some faint belief in some divine authority, regardless of whether that takes form in any specific religious affiliation or not.
So: One can be a scientist, even a first-rank scientist without being “fundamentally atheist”.
To frame this discussion as a conflict between science and faith is not only false, but it is exactly playing into the opposite side’s hands who likes to portray critical voices as cranks ignorant of science, or not even interested in science.
It is not a conflict between science and faith.
It is a conflict between sound science and sloppy science. It is a conflict between honest science and corrupted science.
Hi Manfred,
You misunderstood my statement, and have taken the discussion into a detour. My above statement does not imply that devout individual Scientists do not exist. They do, of course.
At the same time, the Scientific Method will never include the notion of God or ascribe to the basic belief that “God created Life” (this is why Biology continues to teach the notion of “primordial soup”, and teaches about spontaneous generation of life in schoolbooks, even though technically Scientists have never created life out of “organic soup”)…
No Scientific research paper or doctorate thesis will reference Biblical Text as a credible source to support new ideas. Furthermore, the constraints of “peer review” make it impossible to gain widespread recognition in the scientific community if even the most pious Scientists attempt to deviate from this atheist foundational practice in publication. This is probably why Dr. Nash spoke the way he did on that podcast.
Oddly enough, in today’s debate, the reverse holds true…it appears the industry “conveniently” forgot to mention / reference / properly cite that all this testing has been occurring for decades, because Science is one thing, but Marketing and Public Opinion is a far different thing…
The challenge I’m having right now is in answering the question “where were all the Faithful “first-ranked” scientists over the last 60 years to expose the magnitude of the problem?” Someone from this “first-ranked” club must have seen/heard/known something and should have said something back in the 1960s or even 1970s, when there was sufficient opportunity for the consumers to protest and influence the industry to explore more ethical alternatives…is there an answer to this question?
I think the sad but true answer to your question Alex is that the conscientious-ish scientists back then, and there probably were some, did not speak up because they chose to sacrifice the unborn babes, not necessarily on the altar of science, but on the altars of ambition, cowardice, or their own interpretation of economy (similar to Dr. Nash’s interpretation of economy) to appease their conscience.
Science and medicine in general are hugely competitive and often back-stabbing fields. It’s a race towards “success” where success is measured in terms of number of publications, credentials, speaking engagements and recognition. Unfortunately, there are many scientists, including medical doctors who sacrifice their ethics for this type of “success.” I have seen it first hand, both in the cancer research science labs and in the hospital wards of leading centers in Toronto.
Doctors and scientists are not pure or ethical creatures because they wear a white lab coat. They are sinners too, and most of them are willing to sacrifice many years (and other things) in their studies because the want the end rewards very, very badly.
Few are those who are enamored by the actual art/science of medicine or the pristineness of science and achieve recognition or “success” because of their true merits as clear-minded and high quality investigators or selfless caregivers, but these are very, very few. I say this from personal experience.