MRC-5 is basically one of the common human diploid cell lines used to produce viral vaccines. It has fibroblast-like morphology and is able to maintain the normal diploid karyotype in vitro expansion.

Initiated in 1966, September by J.P. Jacobs, MRC 5 line got derived from lung tissue of a 14-week-old male fetus, which a woman of 27 years aborted.

According to experts, MRC-5 can grow adherently in culture and even exhibit fibroblast morphology, which can double in size 42 to 46 times.

It is vulnerable to vesicular stomatitis, herpes simplex, and poliovirus. But the line is negative for reverse transcriptase, showing a lack of important retrovirus genomes.

Human Cell Strains and Development of Vaccines

Researchers have been using animals to produce vaccines since vaccine organizations were developed to harvest cowpox from calves in the 1800s.

From this point, many vaccines were developed with the use of animals, by either using their cells or growing pathogens in a live animal.

While most anti-toxin products and vaccines were developed successfully in this manner, using an animal in the development of vaccines, especially a live animal, is not convenient.

Research animals are expensive and need more monitoring to ensure continued research viability and maintain their good health.

They might as well be carrying other viruses or bacteria, which can contaminate eventual vaccines, as with the case of polio vaccines, which were made using monkey cells and later found to have Simian Virus 40 (SV40), a monkey virus. Plus, some pathogens, like the chickenpox virus, don’t grow properly in animal cells.

Aborted Fetuses and Covid-19 Vaccines

Concerns were expressed on social media that vaccines for Covid-19 are created from aborted fetuses, and a few individuals are against this based on their ethical and religious grounds.

The vaccine developed by AstraZeneca in partnership with Oxford University was the talk of the town. It was claimed on social media that the AstraZeneca vaccines have an MRC-5 cell line from the lung tissues of a male fetus that got aborted in the 1960s.

This claim has been checked by certain organizations and found to be false. But the following organizations found out that MRC-5 cells were used in clinical testing of the vaccine:

  • Full Fact
  • Snopes
  • Reuters
  • Politifact
  • Associated Press

Why Fetal Cells Are Used in the Development of Certain Vaccines

According to researchers, certain viruses, like varicella (chickenpox virus), grow better in human cells. After growing them, the viruses get purified several times so as to remove cell culture materials. This makes it uncommon that human materials to remain in the final production of vaccines.

Researchers also say that fetus from where the MRC-5 cell line is propagated was the outcome of legal abortion and wasn’t carried out to develop vaccines.

Where HEK 293 cells came from is unclear. But it is believed that they came from a therapeutic abortion done in the 1970s back in the Netherlands.

Final Verdict!

The truth is that there were no lung tissues of the aborted male fetus in the AstraZeneca vaccines for Covid-19. The MRC-5 cell line from a male fetus was only part of the clinical testing and wasn’t included in the development of this Covid-19 vaccine itself.