The Supreme Court’s striking down Roe v. Wade and the subsequent abortion bans it enabled remind me very much of naturopathic licensure laws. They’re both based on pseudoscience and ideology.

The Supreme Court’s striking down Roe v. Wade and the subsequent abortion bans it enabled remind me very much of naturopathic licensure laws. They’re both based on pseudoscience and ideology.
Antivaxxers are raising the specter of “fetal cells” being used in COVID-19 vaccines. In the age of the pandemic, everything old is new again!
Antivaxers frequently try to appeal to antiabortion activists by claiming “fetal parts” are used in vaccines. In Michigan, they’re trying to enshrine such deceptive efforts into law in Michigan Senate Bill 1055, which would mandate “informed consent” regarding vaccines for which fetal cell lines are used to grow the virus. In reality, this would be misinformed consent and a strategy to frighten parents out of vaccinating.
Antiabortion antivaccine activists like to claim that “aborted fetal cells” in vaccines mean that vaccines are contaminated products of evil. In reality, there are no “aborted fetal cells” in vaccines. A cell line derived from an aborted fetus in 1962 did, however, lead to huge advances in vaccine technology and the prevention of many millions of deaths worldwide.
I’m always hesitant to write about matters that are more political than scientific or medical, although sometimes the sorts of topics that I blog about inevitably require it (e.g., the 21st Century Cures Act, an act that buys into the myth that to bring “cures” to patients faster we have to neuter the FDA and […]