Why I morally object to the new COVID vaccines, and why you should too even if you aren't pro-fetus
I make a case for a religious/philosophical exemption on the grounds of secular humanism
I have long believed that idiot scientists would collapse civilization one of these days. I just never imagined it would happen in my lifetime.
Nor did I expect it to happen through vaccines. Vaccines after all are the one thing in the broken American healthcare system that isn’t broken. Smallpox has been wiped out worldwide, polio is nonexistent in this country, and measles is very rare outside of religious communities. A rabies or a tetanus shot will save your life if you get it immediately after getting bitten by a bat or stepping on a rusty nail, respectively (happened to my twin sister once). Flu vaccines aren’t very effective, but judging by the VAERS data they aren’t extremely deadly either. Nor are childhood immunizations; severe adverse reactions do happen, and I do believe Big Pharma is fudging the numbers a little bit, but they are at any rate rarer than the rate of similarly severe adverse effects from the diseases they protect from. All in all vaccines aren’t perfect but they are one of modern medicine’s success stories, especially when you compare them with how other diseases such as cancer are treated.
Think about it… imagine if Big Pharma got to the vaccine industry back during its infancy and was therefore able to monetize disease the same way they do now with cancer. Measles, smallpox and polio would still be around, as the vaccines designed under a for-profit model would be so much less effective that you would have to get a new shot for each of them every year even during adulthood, and, like chemo, they would likely be much less safe, having subtle long-term adverse effects similar to those caused by smoking, which they would deny just as vehemently as Big Tobacco back in the day while selling medications to treat those adverse effects. Aren’t you grateful to be living in the timeline where those diseases actually got conquered instead? Surely Big Pharma wouldn’t roll back this kind of social progress and try to implement such a model for the next deadly infectious disease that just randomly mutates into existence out of virtually nowhere, right?
I am not anti-vax but as an autistic person I am skeptical of the healthcare industry for much the same reasons I imagine Black people are. Disabled people were often subjected to unethical human experiments too back in the pre-Nuremberg days, and even for some time after. Vaccines may benefit from a Halo Effect relative to other classes of medicaments for the reasons outlined above but I have nonetheless retained the same healthy level of skepticism for vaccine products that I do for everything else. When the HPV vaccine came out for instance, I was never forced to take it as a teen and still to this day haven’t taken it, but I had thought about it and decided that were I given a choice at that time I would refuse it, understanding that it had not been around for long enough that I could know whether it would have a high rate of long-term severe adverse effects or not, or if it was bad enough that it would eventually get pulled, and the disease it protects against is completely avoidable anyway. It’s been over a decade now and I hear more scare stories about that one than I do about a lot of other vaccines, but at this point it’s been around long enough that I am reasonably certain that, provided you’re not a sex-repulsed asexual celibate like myself (virtually zero chance of cancerous HPV exposure) the risk/reward ratio for taking the HPV vaccine is for most people quite favorable, and if I ever change my mind about sex (I won’t) and my partner of choice tests positive for any of the covered strains of HPV (I’d like to think I wouldn’t have sex with someone without testing them first) I would get the vaccine.
And that was a vaccine that went through several years of clinical trials before it was released and even after all that I still felt like it hadn’t been out for long enough, so you can imagine how I would feel about the prospect of a vaccine for an all-new virus that was rushed out in just a year under the duress of a pandemic. I was assured by the media throughout 2020 that a COVID vaccine wouldn’t be out for a long time, and that it might not be possible at all seeing that a SARS vaccine never got past the animal testing stage. So I didn’t pay that much attention to the research and vaccine trials that were going on. If I had I would have been alarmed by a number of things…
First of all, the fact that they were skipping animal trials - now Reuters will tell you this statement is false, because the animal trials weren’t quite skipped, but rather they were run simultaneously with the human trials. Which COMPLETELY misses the point. At best, they’re playing it loose with the Nuremberg Code. If we give them the charity of Hanlon’s Razor, then this decision of theirs is more than just stupid. This is comically stupid… it’s like, cartoon villain’s henchmen levels of stupid! They miss the point in the same stupid and hilarious way that the butt of a dumb blonde joke might miss a point! It’s like having sex DURING marriage instead of waiting until AFTER marriage - technically that is still sex before marriage if you do it before the wedding ceremony is complete; plus, who is going to attend let alone allow their daughter be a flower girl for you and your lover’s nasty ass wedding-orgy?! If they’re going to do it like that, seriously, why bother with animal trials at all?! Might as well skip animal testing altogether and make it the world’s first vegan vaccine.
Secondly and most importantly, the mechanism of action of the vaccine candidates that the media was promoting the most since the pandemic had barely started. They got all excited over some technology I had never heard of that is basically gene therapy lite - I say “lite” because it uses RNA instead of DNA; it’s analogous to getting a temporary tattoo versus a permanent one - which was originally developed for cancer and other such diseases that might justify fast tracking such an experimental technology, provided it works, but somehow no such treatment made it to clinical trials on humans despite having been tested on animals for THREE WHOLE DECADES, as many a Pfizer shill or Moderna sockpuppet will parrot in response to anybody concerned that the technology is too recent. Actual DNA-based gene therapy, by the way, has been tested - on HUMANS! - for FORTY years, yet I don’t see too many lining up to CRISPR away their genetic predisposition to cancer or diabetes… which is why, to avoid bankruptcy, Moderna had to redirect their research efforts toward antiviral inoculations, since those in theory would only require one or two shots and therefore not incur the toxicity of repeated injections as were required for their Crigler-Najjar syndrome therapy which failed in macaques. First human trials for an mRNA vaccine based on a model similar to that used for the COVID vaccines were in 2015, I believe. I don’t think the results of these trials are publicly available.
When I did find out about the vaccine candidates that made it, I studied the mechanics of the technologies used and I was immediately horrified, and I found the philosophy behind this paradigm to be equally revolting. Every other vaccine ever approved by the FDA has been either a dead, weakened, or broken-off piece of a virus. The principle behind this is simple - present a less harmful, non-infectious simulacrum of an infectious agent along with some adjuvant to stimulate an immune response. This paradigm is hundreds of years old, beginning with the practice of variolation, or rubbing pus from smallpox sores into healthy people’s wounds, which was practiced under Chinese and Islamic empires, and taught to the Puritans by their African slaves (and now you know why the American Indians were nearly wiped out by smallpox and the Africans weren’t). However I think the public has been put under the subliminal suggestion that traditional technologies were not going to cut it for the novel coronavirus.
Subliminal propaganda is used to manipulate beliefs when there is no scientific argument to be explicitly made, since a belief can’t be examined if it’s so implicit that you don’t even know that you believe it. I also think it had been subconsciously suggested to the public that the novel coronavirus was lab created and therefore intelligently bioengineered to be at least in the long term super-dangerous, hence why they had such an extreme fear of it, although the lab leak theory was explicitly denied. Perhaps this was achieved with the use of the word “novel”, which is most commonly seen in the titles of patent applications and thus carries the implicature of being manmade. This could be how those that understood the science enough to be reasonably cautious of it were influenced to accept this new paradigm.
The new paradigm being that, instead of simulating the virus, we are going to simulate the infection. Inject you with what from the older paradigm would be considered an unfinished vaccine that would be put inside aborted fetal cells or something in a factory somewhere, and the protein product that would be produced would then be packaged up to make a protein subunit vaccine. But instead of using the factory and the cell culture to do that, we are going to finish the job in YOUR body.
YOU are the cell culture. YOU are the aborted fetus.
On its face this seemed insane to me. This is a hyperreal simulacrum of a COVID-19 infection, and a severe one at that (one that has made it to the bloodstream). The only difference is that it only produces the spike protein and not the rest of the virus, and it doesn’t replicate itself. Still, a single jab contains a similar number of particles to the number of virions one harbors at the height of a severe infection. So what exactly makes this vaccine safer than the virus? If COVID-19’s characteristic symptoms that differentiate it from a cold virus aren’t caused by the spike protein, then by what protein are they caused? Is the nucleocapsid particularly toxic or something? Intuition would suggest that the novel spike protein is the most likely offender, and in any case it hasn’t been proven not to be. Perhaps the double proline modification makes it safer. But that hasn’t been proven; it may even make the protein more toxic.
Even if safer than the virus, is it safer or even AS safe as a traditional vaccine? A priori reasoning tells us that it CANNOT be safer - while a traditional vaccine would only expose you to the risks of having spike protein in your body, a gene vector vaccine exposes you to all of those risks PLUS the risks of disrupting cellular function by hijacking the cellular machinery, of the RNA code being reverse transcribed (unlikely unless you’re HIV-positive), of producing the spike protein inside the cell, of having spike proteins sticking on the outside of cells… or do they break off? Or does the cell produce the spike proteins bound to exosomes; little faux-virions with no genetic payload inside? This was never explained. Doubtful that it was even known at the time.
In order for the vaccine to even be AS SAFE as a traditional vaccine, we would have to assume that there is ZERO risk regarding anything that happens as a consequence of the vaccine’s transfection action.
By the way this applies to both the mRNA technologies and the adenovirus vector, which many people mistake for a traditional vaccine just because it uses a virus… which isn’t a COVID virus, and still fully able to invade your cells, so functionally it’s like the mRNA lipid nanoparticle but with a more limited tropism. I thought for this reason it would be safer but after a couple months of VAERS data it was clear to me that it wasn’t.
As I mentioned there are many that implicitly believe, or have even come to the explicit conclusion, that this is a novel virus and for that reason it requires a novel vaccine. But what rationale are the experts using for pushing this new paradigm in order to fix a technology that wasn’t even broken? They aren’t arguing that it is safer or more effective. Rather they dazzle investors with this dog-and-pony show where they “invent” the Moderna COVID vaccine in just a couple of days, using what they have sold as a one-size-fits-all template for modifying the software of life to tech billionaire investors that are ignorant of molecular biology and likely think that the same reductionist approach that is suitable for computer science also works for a system as complex, nonlinear and ill-understood as the RNA microbiome of the human body. Supposedly these vaccines can be made much faster than traditional vaccines, so that they could in theory have made a bespoke Delta vaccine right away before the Delta variant mutated into something that would be resistant to it, rather than waiting for it to grow inside an egg by which point Omicron would have showed up. This remains to be proven, seeing that no bespoke vaccines have been made beyond the vaccine for the original variant that they are still expecting to protect us even from the Omicron variant. But the way they sold it certainly caught Trump’s attention, since he wanted a vaccine to be made quick enough to come out before the election. He managed to cut enough red tape to get it done only a month after. Remember, this is a man who had to ask why it’s not safe to inject disinfectant into a human body.
At that point however there was no talk of mandates outside of conspiracy circles. It was December, the planets Jupiter and Saturn were coming together, and it seemed to be causing me to have strange and vivid dreams. One such dream was of running around a clinic trying to get away from being forced - not merely coerced with a mandate, but held down with FORCE and injected against my will - with a COVID vaccine. I felt the uncanny dread of knowing what was inside the syringe was not what everyone seemed to think it was, like I was the only animal among lab animals that was endowed with humanlike intelligence, and I experienced a horrifying new feeling that I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before - not just of fear, but beyond that; the feeling of being subjected to treatment that was beneath human dignity, a very unique flavor of fear. I sought the words to describe how I felt, and I came up with the word “abjection”.
Perhaps this was just a small taste of how Hitler’s victims felt when they were lined up and forced into trains and then showers?
I am agnostic, and I live in California, where philosophical exemption is not allowed, but religious exemption is - for college students, but not K-12 students, though they are making an exception regarding the COVID vaccine. I don’t know if my dream qualifies as a sincere religious experience sufficient to be granted an exemption, and I am not going to lie about being a vegan or a pro-life Christian. Any scientific facts I know or theories I believe about the vaccine being dangerous don’t qualify; you can’t get exemptions for scientific beliefs, only for religious beliefs, for superstition and the like, or for moral/ethical beliefs if they seem quasi-religious enough, like veganism. Most people however, even atheists, have some quasi-religious belief about the sanctity of human life. Many atheists subscribe to the tenets of secular humanism, which have a similar view about human dignity to religions such as Christianity. The only difference between secular humanism and pro-life Christianity on that matter is what counts as a human. To most secular humanists a fetus, much less a cell culture derived from one, isn’t fully a human. Pro-life Christians on the other hand view even a fetal cell culture as deserving of human dignity and because of that human dignity it is wrong to use it as a cell culture even to produce products helpful to other human beings.
If you’re such a Christian and you object to a vaccine that uses aborted fetus cell culture to produce the antigen, but not to a vaccine that uses a live post-birth human as a cell culture to produce the antigen, then you are not truly pro-life. You are one of those hypocritical pro-birth Christians, if you can even be considered Christian at all what with your fetal idolatry. The mRNA vaccines are not made using fetal cell culture anyway (though the Johnson & Johnson adenovirus vector is); they only use it for testing the vaccine, and if you object to that then you should also throw away your aspirin and paracetamol and probably everything else in your medicine cabinet, and your religious exemption will probably be denied if you confess to using any such fetus-tested medications
If you are an atheist, particularly a secular humanist, and you fail to see an ethical issue with this vaccine, then you are kind of proving the Christians’ point all along about humanity needing to believe in God in order to behave morally.
I am disappointed to see that, while the ethics regarding the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccines have undergone much consideration, as have the ethics more broadly of using more-or-less experimental vaccines on humans in such a capacity, the particular ethics of using live post-birth human cells in vivo to produce a vaccine, especially as a choice in lieu of a different route, have scarcely if at all entered public consciousness. Perhaps it’s that most people do not understand the fundamental distinction between how these vaccines work and how every other vaccine they’ve ever had works, in which case informed consent is violated, and people are technically being deceived by not knowing and therefore assuming it’s like all the others.
Whether you are a religious fundamentalist, or an irreligious humanist, or anything in between; basically if you are not a sociopath, it goes against your moral values to accept a vaccine that uses live post-birth human beings as a cell culture - as a means and not as an end, as Kant would put it - without a compelling reason. If you understand the mechanics of this type of vaccine, and the reasoning behind its selection over other, more traditional candidates, your gut instinct should be that it’s positively GROTESQUE. That doesn’t mean it’s inherently always wrong, but a compelling reason should be demanded in order to view it as acceptable.
Some pro-life Christians view a pandemic as a compelling reason to use aborted fetal cells, and this is the Vatican’s stance on the subject. Vegans may feel the same way. The same may also apply to post-birth humans. Now the inherent danger of the vaccines nullifies any such compelling reasons, but you cannot use this argument in requesting an exemption, since the vaccines are assumed to be ultra-safe. Instead you have to argue that a vaccine against the novel coronavirus that operates according to the traditional paradigm exists and is regarded as “safe and effective” by an approved establishment.
If the World Health Organization counts as an approved establishment, they have deemed three such vaccines to be safe and effective: Sinopharm BIBP, Sinovac, and Covaxin. These may not be approved in your country, but that’s your government’s problem, not yours. If your government wants you vaccinated it is incumbent on them to approve and distribute a vaccine that doesn’t violate your religious or ethical beliefs.
If your religious exemption based on these grounds gets rejected anyway, take it to court. Perhaps they rejected it because they didn’t feel it was religious enough; in which case they are bigoted against atheists which in the US is unconstitutional. Come to think of it it’s bigoted against atheists to accept religious but not philosophical exemptions as well. As an autistic person my spirituality is articulated more philosophically than that of most neurotypical persons I imagine; I could probably appeal a rejection on the grounds of ableist discrimination.
If they accept any religious exemptions on the grounds of using fetal cell culture they will have to accept religious exemptions on the grounds of post-birth in vivo human cell culture. Otherwise they will look like hypocritical religious bigots and since these mandates are mainly happening in the “Woke” states chances are they will have to accept your exemption request in order to save face.
I hope…
Firstly, I enjoyed this. I linked into it from Steve Kirsch's article. Secondly, I think we are on the same page, despite your stated Atheism. I am Canadian, by the way, so the whole country is underneath mandates that are similar to the most tyrannical of your blue states.
Having said this, I'd like to make a few points. My husband and I have our religious exemption requests completed. My husband is waiting for a response. I'm waiting to be asked to submit mine. I work at home, so didn't initially think I needed one. Regardless, the mRNA was the focus of our affidavits, for some of the reasons you list. The mRNA hijacks the operating system of life. One of the top executives from Moderna said so himself in 2016. I find this technology repugnant (toxic spikes aside). These maniacal scientists and tech wannabe overlords, are literally wanting to play 'god' with our bodies. They have ascended to a state of arrogance, in their own minds, where this is in their rights to experiment with the human race.
The use of fetal cells were also part of our sworn statements. Firstly, the fetal kidney cell line used had to be removed from a fetus adequately developed. Secondly, the kidney had to be removed while the fetus was still alive. I'd have to find the reference for that, but this alone is enough. I am a life long Christian, but new Roman Catholic (as of 2018). I know other Catholics are in agreement: the current Pope is a man, not God, and therefore he is capable of sin. Other Archbishops and Priests have spoken out too. The end doesn't justify the means and the Vatican partnering with the Great Resetters is a sin against humanity.
Finally, the studies using other drugs and fetal cell lines happened post development not prior to bringing the product to market. Therein lies another fundamental difference. We have no control over what mad-scientific experiments freaks like Fauci condone/oversee (e.g., using fetal tissue/ scalp in one case and fusing to rat bodies). We do have control over our willingness to use a product that could ONLY have been developed with the aborted babies. Do you see the difference?
I enjoyed you article. Your dream is horrifying and is parallel with some of my worst fears. I am grateful I have faith to support me. I do believe we are in the labour pains of Revelation, the final chapter of the Bible.
Lots of brilliant points. Your discussion of non-Covid vaccines throws in a lot of modern myths, however. If you'll forgive me for side-stepping the core subject of your essay in order to highlight an example: "Measles, smallpox and polio would still be around"
Measles mortality was near-zero for decades before the vaccine; severe outcomes were rare and already treatable with antibody therapy. It was a non-problem. The only reason measles vaccines had to be mandated so aggressively was that they don't work very well. Essentially a handful of CDC bureaucrats in 1967 were determined to have a spot in history and when they failed their successors saw that as an invitation to retry; mandates in schools followed. All for a virus that was already near-harmless. It's quite a sickening history and that's all before 1986.
Smallpox was not vanquished by vaccines. Vaccinations were produced and heavily promoted in India for 100 years and there was still plenty of smallpox there, before the WHO eradication campaign. Meanwhile, much of the West had stopped heavy use of the vaccine, and no smallpox. The WHO campaign worked because of track and trace / isolation, not the vaccine. Efficacy of the vaccine was never demonstrated. It was Dumbo's feather.
Polio is still around. The Sabin oral "vaccine" is just... polio virus, but with a controlled dose. That's probably for the best, since injecting against an enterovirus cannot produce durable immunity. But we've partially switched back to injected vaccine and so there might a surprise reemergence of severe outcomes in the future. I still have to do more research into the current methods, however.