Vaccines and anti-vaccination

‘Vaccination is not above serious debate, and it is sceptics – as distinct from anti-vaxxers – who drive medical progress’

At the time of writing, an effective vaccine against COVID-19 remains elusive. It is possible that one will be available soon, and probable that it will be the catalyst for further debate around vaccination and its related scientific and ethical issues.

The health benefits conferred by vaccination are undeniable. For example, Olshansky and Hayflick (2017) reported how the diploid cell strain WI-38 – derived from a human fetal lung taken following a surgical abortion (Hayflick, 1965) – had treated or averted 4.5 billion cases of poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, shingles, adenovirus, rabies and hepatitis A infections worldwide, saving 10.3 million lives.

However, Professor Leonard Hayflick's contribution to global public health was condemned as evil by the Pontifical Academy for Life (2005), as were those who prepared, marketed, and used aborted tissue-derived vaccines for health reasons. Similarly, when Ahmed et al (2018) reported a sharp increase in the number of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as polio, diphtheria, measles, tetanus and pertussis, in Muslim-majority countries, they cited ‘a celebrity singer with a huge following in Malaysia and Indonesia [who] openly declared his support for an anti-vaccination stance, posting “Allah is all powerful, vaccines have no power” on social media’.