FETAL TISSUE USED TO DEVELOP POLIO VACCINE

In the original research to develop a vaccine for polio, Jonas Salk used monkey kidney cells to grow the virus and create the vaccine. When the Salk vaccine was first entering human trials, Bernie Eddy was in charge of the safety tests for the polio vaccine. When testing the safety of Salk’s vaccine, she injected the vaccine into monkeys and noticed that it paralyzed some of them.

Despite reporting this evidence, the Salk vaccine was still approved along with the Cutter vaccine which ended up paralyzing 192 people and killing 10. The vaccines were then recalled, and Eddy lost her job. Though the Salk vaccine was about 90% effective, it was known that growing the polio virus in these monkey cells lead to problems because these kidney cells were riddled with other simian viruses as well. This is ultimately what led to the use of fetal tissue for polio vaccine research.

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The use of fetal tissue for experimentation and research in the United States caused ethical issues for a number of reasons. People were concerned with how fetal tissue was being obtained. This led to the creation of a number of ethical codes which prevent fetal tissue from being obtained unethical, like as through bribery. Fetal tissue can only be obtained with consent of the woman and only through her own decision to have an abortion or the death of the fetus from natural causes. There also cannot be any monetary exchange for the tissue.

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Sources:

Coutts, Mary Carrington. “Fetal Tissue Research.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. Johns Hopkins University Press, (January 1, 2009).

Rhodes, A J. “Research on the Development of a Poliomyelitis Vaccine: Toronto, 1950-1953.” Canadian Medical Association Journal. U.S. National Library of Medicine (July 1, 1956).

Robbins, Frederick C, John F Enders, and Thomas H Weller. “Cytopathogenic Effect of Poliomyelitis Viruses In Vitro on Human Embryonic Tissues.” Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, (November 1, 1950).

Wadman, Meredith. The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease. Penguin Random House LLC, 2017.