Gyroscopic Investing

Sounds like Covid is actually God's gift to Trump...

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President Trump claimed on Wednesday that catching the coronavirus was “a blessing from God” and portrayed as a miracle cure the unproven therapeutic drug he was given after testing positive last week for the virus.

Mr. Trump said he planned to make the antibody cocktail being developed by the drug maker Regeneron, which does not yet have government approval, free to anyone who needs it. He did not explain how he would do it, although on Wednesday night, Regeneron said it had submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency approval.

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The antibody cocktail for Covid-19 that President Trump touted on Wednesday afternoon was developed with cells originally derived from fetal tissue, a practice that the president has repeatedly condemned.

In June 2019, the Trump administration suspended federal funding for most new scientific research involving fetal tissue derived from abortions.

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To develop the antibodies, Regeneron relied on 293T, a human cell line once derived from fetal tissue. At least two companies racing to produce vaccines against the coronavirus, Moderna and AstraZeneca, also are using the cell line.

Remdesivir, an antiviral drug Mr. Trump received, also was tested using these cells.

“293Ts were used in testing the antibodies’ ability to neutralize the virus,” said Alexandra Bowie, a spokeswoman for Regeneron. “They weren’t used in any other way, and fetal tissue was not used in the research.”

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And I am not necessarily pro-choice or pro-life. I believe a woman should be able to choose, but should also be able to have access to any and all kinds of birth control and education to prevent that choice from needing to be made. But if abortions do still happen, and if the fetuses are otherwise going to be disposed of, this is at least some good from a bad situation.

What do you guys think (Mountaineer esp?) Should this cell line never have existed?

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2020 1:30 pm Sounds like Covid is actually God's gift to Trump...

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President Trump claimed on Wednesday that catching the coronavirus was “a blessing from God” and portrayed as a miracle cure the unproven therapeutic drug he was given after testing positive last week for the virus.

Mr. Trump said he planned to make the antibody cocktail being developed by the drug maker Regeneron, which does not yet have government approval, free to anyone who needs it. He did not explain how he would do it, although on Wednesday night, Regeneron said it had submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency approval.

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The antibody cocktail for Covid-19 that President Trump touted on Wednesday afternoon was developed with cells originally derived from fetal tissue, a practice that the president has repeatedly condemned.

In June 2019, the Trump administration suspended federal funding for most new scientific research involving fetal tissue derived from abortions.

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To develop the antibodies, Regeneron relied on 293T, a human cell line once derived from fetal tissue. At least two companies racing to produce vaccines against the coronavirus, Moderna and AstraZeneca, also are using the cell line.

Remdesivir, an antiviral drug Mr. Trump received, also was tested using these cells.

“293Ts were used in testing the antibodies’ ability to neutralize the virus,” said Alexandra Bowie, a spokeswoman for Regeneron. “They weren’t used in any other way, and fetal tissue was not used in the research.”

+++++++++

And I am not necessarily pro-choice or pro-life. I believe a woman should be able to choose, but should also be able to have access to any and all kinds of birth control and education to prevent that choice from needing to be made. But if abortions do still happen, and if the fetuses are otherwise going to be disposed of, this is at least some good from a bad situation.

What do you guys think (Mountaineer esp?) Should this cell line never have existed?

Corto, that is indeed a very big question. I wanted to think about it for a while before responding.

The cell line exists because a human once existed. One may ask, is it ethical to make use of parts from any deceased human, such as organ transplants, regardless of their manner of death? I think a more appropriate question for me, and perhaps what you are getting at Corto, is: Given this cell line exists, do I think it is ethical to have benefits from it? Below are some of my thoughts as I processed the question:

I like salad. Is it ethical for me to eat lettuce that was grown, harvested, shipped, stocked onto the grocery store shelves when there were probably people along the supply chain who were illegal immigrants, used illegal substances, or used the Lord's name in vain? Is it ethical for me to eat that lettuce knowing that the plastic used to wrap it might end up in a fish belly or bird throat and kill it?

I enjoy my health and I've been sick or hurt many times in my life and have used antibiotics, antiseptics, analgesics, etc. Is it ethical for me to use materials that somewhere in their development may have been tested on rabbits, rats, mice, Rhesus monkeys or humans who subsequently had ill effects or died?

I enjoy sometimes watching TV, listening to music, and using a cell phone. Is it ethical for me to do so knowing that some of the parts were produced by cheap labor in other countries without safety and environmental standards like we have in our country? Or knowing that some of those parts will end up in landfills and contaminate the environment for future generations, or be processed by people who are exposed to the fumes from a melter that lacks proper emission controls?

Since I'm a Christian, I checked on some background to see what might be pertinent. Matthew 7:3 (ESV) Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye. Genesis 50:19,20 (ESV) But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. Mark 7:18-20 (ESV) And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. Acts 10:13-15 (ESV) And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”

I consulted a book by Gilbert Meilaender - Bioethics: A Primer for Christians.

Does a comparably effective alternative exist that does not make use of something from aborted humans, or unused embryos?

Famous, probably apocryphal, quotation from Martin Luther:  “I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than by a foolish Christian.” 

I hope this helps answer how I think about your question, Corto. The topic of ethics has enormous religious connections and is very complex. God uses evil and sinful humans (all of us) for his purposes which are always good, some of which we understand, and some of which we do not. God is God, I'm not. God is always in charge and forgives all. Those who have the gift of faith, those who believe in HIs promises, will live in His presence forever.

Thanks for that well thought out answer, Mountaineer!

More on the subject:

Mini-media storm: Trump guilty of using meds created with help of abortion tissue?
by Julia Duin, getreligion.org
October 13, 2020 10:00 AM
The MIT reporter probably saw the tweet and ran with it. Read a bit further and you can see the writer walk back the big idea of the headline.

But when the president faced a deadly encounter with covid-19, his administration raised no objections over the fact that the new drugs also relied on fetal cells, and anti-abortion campaigners were silent too. Most likely, their hypocrisy was unwitting. Many types of medical and vaccine research employ supplies of cells originally acquired from abortion tissue. It would have taken an expert to realize that was the case with Trump’s treatment.

No kidding. Now read the next two paragraphs closely.

Last Friday, as Trump developed worrisome symptoms of covid-19, the president received an emergency cocktail of anti-coronavirus antibodies made by Regeneron. These molecules are manufactured in cells from a hamster’s ovary, so-called “CHO” cells, according to the company — not in human cells.

But cells originally derived from a fetus were used in another way. According to Regeneron, laboratory tests used to assess the potency of its antibodies employed a standardized supply of cells called HEK 293T, whose origin was kidney tissue from an abortion in the Netherlands in the 1970s.

A Catholic News Service piece about that same line identifies the abortion has having happened in 1972. So Trump didn’t actually get cells from a 48-year-old abortion pumped into him. The cells came from a test to assess the quality of his meds that had come from an abortion a very long time ago, scientifically speaking. Big difference there.

But the MIT piece considers the drug and the test upon the drug as basically the same thing. Still, how would anyone in any hospital anywhere be aware that a test involving one of your meds had dubious ethical origins from another country, decades ago?

Because the 293T cells were acquired so long ago, and have lived so long in the laboratory, they are no longer thought of as involving abortion politics.

“It’s how you want to parse it,” says Alexandra Bowie, a Regeneron spokesperson. “But the 293T cell lines available today are not considered fetal tissue, and we did not otherwise use fetal tissue.”

At the bottom of the story was this note:

An earlier version of this story was headlined "Trump’s antibody treatment was tested using cells from an abortion." The words "originally derived" were added to clarify that the cells are not from a recent abortion.

The story would have not gotten the same reaction had the headline said the abortion was close to 50 years ago. The original made it sound like tissue from the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic got rushed over to Walter Reed.

But who cares about such journalistic subtleties when the political damage has already been done? The New York Times, The Guardian, Vice.com, Haaretz and Business Insider are only some of the publications that ran with the story.

The Guardian piece even managed to drag Barrett into the story, but got some facts wrong. It too ran a lengthy correction:

This article was amended on 9 October 2020 to clarify that HEK-293T cells are derived from an embryonic kidney, but are not in fact stem cells, and the headline was amended to clarify the cells were derived from an abortion, rather than specifically from an “aborted fetus”.

Should have gotten those headlines right the first time, folks. And to what audience was that article aimed? Perhaps at Catholics in vital Rust Belt states who care about such things as research using human fetal tissue and whose votes, as Clemente Lisi wrote on Saturday, are vital on Nov. 3?

A follow-up Business Insider piece on Friday, which got all the details right, didn’t blame Trump. Instead, it noted what hypocrites pro-life groups are for not condemning Trump’s meds.

This kind of journalism — Inaccurate headlines and what seems like an agenda to blame Trump for even matters he has no control over — is what has driven many conservatives away from the mainstream media in droves. Look at the subhead about the MIT piece:

The Trump administration has looked to curtail research with fetal cells. But when it was life or death for the president, no one objected.

But then when you read the small print, you realize that probably a lot of meds -– including vaccines we all use –- may have come from fetal cells from the older cell lines and that everyone is complicit.

The Vatican has struggled with this quandary for years and its 2008 bioethics document “Dignitas Personae,” speaks to it. And in 2005, the Vatican said was that morally compromised meds — as in a rubella vaccine derived from two aborted fetuses in 1964 and 1970 — are temporarily allowable until a better alternative can be found.

The issue is more current than ever with efforts to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The Vatican has been pushing for a vaccine with abortion-free cell lines, as there are many who would refuse to be inoculated with something derived from aborted babies.

(Can you imagine such a vaccine coming out and the Catholic Church instructing its 1 billion members not to take it? Now that would be quite the bio-ethics journalism bonanza.)

There’s so many places that this MIT Technology piece could have gone that would have been journalistically honest and would have brought up the ethical thicket we face with vaccines and meds. But no, they chose to take the low road and trash Trump for something he could not have known about. Cheap shots often lead to corrections that sting.

There’s plenty of legit reasons to criticize the president and many of his supporters, but intention use of abortion cell lines isn’t one of them.