Human Aborted Fetal Tissue in Common Vaccines

Several common vaccines are made by growing the necessary viruses in fetal embryo fibroblast cells. These cells originally came from tissue obtained from two fetuses that were legally and electively aborted in the early 1960s. The same cells have continued to grow in a laboratory and are still used to make vaccines today. The first licensed vaccine made with the use of a human cell strain was the adenovirus vaccine used by the military in the late 1960s. Later, other vaccines were developed in human cell strains, most notably the rubella vaccine developed by Stanley Plotkin, MD, at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia.