Georgetown University Continues to Use Aborted Fetal Cell Lines, Despite Complaints

A Note to Our Readers... In July 2003 Children of God for Life discovered that aborted fetal cell lines were being used in research at Georgetown University.  We wrote to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick asking him to use his authority and put an end to the research.  When our letters went unanswered, we followed up with phone calls and subsequent letters in September.  In December, we received a response from His Eminence stating, "Most of the problems in your letter have been resolved and I am peaceful that the concerns expressed in your letter are no longer valid."  

Was it a veiled attempt to placate the unsuspecting?  How would we know if the University had in fact complied? The best way seemed to let the matter become public among small Catholic groups by thanking the Cardinal for his help. News broke quickly.  The GU campus newspaper the Hoya called to investigate further.  In a January 23rd article, Executive Director of GUMC Communications Amy DeMaria stated, “Although we were already in compliance with the directives, we felt it was prudent to remove from our tissue bank the four cell lines to make it absolutely clear that GUMC is committed to conducting research in a way that is in full compliance with the ERDs and Catholic moral teaching. No research was disrupted in the removal of the cell lines.” (Read the entire article in the Hoya)

Two days later, the Washington Post picked up the story and pushed further still.  In a telephone interview with Amy Argetsinger, Children of God for Life would finally learn the truth. (see article below) 

Our fight does not end here.  For if it is okay for a Catholic institution to use these aborted fetal cell lines in research, then certainly the vaccines and medical procedures derived from them are okay too, so why bother getting ethical alternatives?   And why bother with the new Fair Labeling and Informed Consent Legislation (see www.cogforlife.org/flica.htm ) proposed to Congress Jan 20th?  If it is morally okay to use murdered babies in research why should the public be made aware of this when purchasing medical products?  In fact, why bother with any ethical research at all? 

We stand poised to bring ethical alternatives to the American people that are not derived from aborted fetal cell lines - yet this decision by GU may bring that effort to a screeching halt.  If you are concerned with not only the immoral, non-Catholic activity conducted at one of this country's oldest Catholic institutions, but with what the long term implications mean to you and your families, please join our efforts to stop this.

In addition, we ask you to read the comments recently published by the National Catholic Bioethics Center and our response.  Somehow, Children of God for Life is now perpetuated to be the "bad guy" and the pharmaceutical industry is just dandy!  It is shameful that an organization designed to give guidance to our bishops and Church leaders should respond in such a manner.  Click here to read our response!  Their contact information is at the bottom of their article.

Click Here for Results of The GU Petition        

GU to Continue Controversial Research
Use of Aborted Fetal Cells Prompts Probe at Catholic Institution

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61643-2004Jan29.html

By Amy Argetsinger and Avram Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 30, 2004 ; Page B01

The letter last fall from an antiabortion group posed an unexpected quandary for Georgetown University Medical Center .

A Florida-based group wrote to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington that some scientists at Georgetown , a Catholic university, were doing research using cells derived from aborted fetuses.

An in-house investigation verified the claim. But when 14 of the researchers involved said that ending the use of the cells in question would jeopardize years of work and funding, the matter was turned over to ethicists. In a recommendation that scholars said could mark a first in Catholic medical research in the United States , Georgetown has decided to let those researchers continue their work.

The Rev. Kevin T. FitzGerald, a university bioethicist, said he reasoned that the scientists did not know the cells had come from aborted fetuses when they began their work and should not be forced to abandon potentially lifesaving studies or risk forfeiting grants. The benefits to society, he said, far outweigh the harm done by using the cells, because the abortions were not performed for the purpose of providing the cells to scientists.

"The ideal would be not to be involved with [aborted fetal cells] at all," said FitzGerald, a Jesuit priest who holds a doctorate in molecular genetics. "Obviously, we don't live in an ideal world. We do the best we can."

Four other Georgetown researchers agreed to switch to other cell lines after determining they could do so without compromising their work. The medical center has removed the controversial frozen cell lines from its central repository on campus.

But those moves do not preclude a Georgetown researcher from using aborted fetal cells in the future if there are no alternatives. FitzGerald said each instance would have to be judged.

"We have to pull in the administrators at the university to say what sorts of things can we put in place as far as a screening process," he said. "We have to figure out who does it, where does the screening take place, how is it structured, who decides. I don't know what we're going to be able to do or not do. This is new ground."

John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston, said the ethical issues surrounding the use of fetal cells, embryonic stem cells and cloning are the most controversial facing the church. "I don't see the moral difficulty in using these cell lines, because you're not contributing in any way to the abortions, which took place decades ago," Haas said. "However, there is the risk of leading people to think that [some Catholic institutions do not] consider abortion to be a great evil and are indifferent to it and willing to work with tissue that result from that kind of action."

Haas said Georgetown is the first Catholic research institution that has addressed the issue publicly and said it is possible that others have made internal decisions that have not been disclosed.

Debra Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, who initiated the complaint, said she was dismayed to learn that Georgetown has made compromises in coping with a complex problem. She said McCarrick wrote to her last month to say her concerns "had been resolved," which she took to mean that the cell lines were no longer in use.

Vinnedge said she could understand Georgetown 's position. "Once you start your research, you can't start introducing variables," she said, adding that she hopes the institution will retire the cell lines once the particular research projects are completed. Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said McCarrick had asked Georgetown to look into the letter from Vinnedge and was satisfied with its response.

Some of the involved cell lines, which are widely used in medical research nationwide, were derived from cells that were harvested from aborted fetuses in Europe nearly 40 years ago, while others are more recent. Scientists say they prefer working with cells from fetuses because they can grow rapidly and adapt to new environments better than those from mature humans. Cell lines can be maintained indefinitely in the laboratory, leaving little need to extract new ones.

Some of Georgetown 's cells have been at the medical center for years, stored in a liquid nitrogen freezer. They are being used by scientists in studies on treatments for illnesses that include Alzheimer's disease, cancer, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and heart disease, said Georgetown spokeswoman Amy DeMaria.

Fetal cells are not subject to federal restrictions, such as a ban on federal funding of research using embryonic stem cells created after August 2001. The Catholic church objects to research on cells from aborted fetuses, but it allows the use of cells from miscarried fetuses, including those from spontaneous abortions, because they were unplanned.

Vinnedge's organization, based in Clearwater , Fla. , was established to protest the use of aborted fetal cell lines in developing vaccines. From reading scientific journals, Vinnedge said, she had identified several cell lines said to have come from aborted fetuses. When she searched for them by code number on the Internet, she found them on a Georgetown Web site listing cell lines in use at the medical center.

"I've never seen anything like this at a Catholic university," she said in a telephone interview this week.

Vinnedge's letter to McCarrick triggered an unprecedented internal review by Georgetown bioethicists, university officials said.

In weighing how to handle the issue, Georgetown looked to the debate of a decade ago, when many Catholics became aware that cells from an aborted fetus were used to originate cultures used to manufacture chicken pox vaccine and measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Since then, a measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been developed without cells from an aborted fetus, but the chicken pox vaccine is still made with the same cell line.

Church officials concluded that the benefits of widespread immunization significantly outweighed the drawbacks of using aborted fetal cells, said FitzGerald.

"The connection to the abortion was distant and remote enough to say that this in no way encouraged or facilitated further abortions," he said. "The good was a proportionately strong enough argument to say, 'Do this.' "

Georgetown applied the same rationale to the new dilemma, reasoning that the work its scientists had been doing was too important "to throw all this good stuff out," FitzGerald said.

But FitzGerald acknowledged the practical challenge of avoiding the cell lines in future research projects. Investigators often must use a particular line of aborted fetal cells to qualify for a grant because the National Institutes of Health or other research funding agencies want to compare the results with other studies performed using the same source material. Using cells with different traits would make comparisons invalid, he said.

Fitzgerald said Georgetown scientists should not feel threatened by the university's actions. "We're not trying to roll back anybody's freedoms or disrupt anybody's research," he said.

Staff writer Rick Weiss contributed to this report.

Children of God for Life Responds to GU- Click Here to Learn The Catholic Truth