Immunizations and vaccine origin: What is a socially just public health response to ethical-moral concerns?

Healthy People 2010 set a goal of a 90% vaccination coverage level as “sufficient to prevent circulation of viruses and bacteria-causing vaccine-preventable diseases.” Accordingly, all US states require proof of immunization for school entry. As of January 1998, all states also allow medical exemptions, forty-eight states permit religious exemptions, and fifteen allow for philosophical or personal exemptions.

One particular religious objection resides in the origin of certain scheduled immunizations. Vaccines for rubella, chicken pox, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, kidney inflammation and other hepatitis A infections derive from the human fetal diploid cell lines MRC-5 and WI-38. Right-to-life groups have advocated for religious exemptions to mandatory vaccinations because of the process used to originally obtain these cell lines. Such groups call for parents' moral obligation to refuse certain vaccinations for their children. Alternatively, a group of researchers concluded that those who claimed philosophical and/or religious exemptions “may create some risk to the community because unvaccinated or undervaccinated persons may be a source of transmission.”

The main purpose is to explore the moral issues and public health concerns associated with these vaccinations. Right-to-life opposition to vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines, the moral values and benefits associated with receiving these vaccines, and public health's response will be specifically addressed. The most recent scientific studies and writings from both the medical and theological communities (including ethicists) will be utilized. Recommendations for parents, public health workers and health care practitioners regarding the use of vaccines will also be addressed.