Page 57 - Vaccines

Moral responsibilities

e now turn to our concluding remarks
concerning moral responsibilities relating to
W vaccines from aborted human foetuses. After the
analysis given above, the following points appear to me
to be important.

a. The vaccine as such

A vaccine as such, once it is produced, tested in the
phases of clinical experimentation (in the laboratory, on
animals and on informed, consenting human subjects
enrolled in stage III (and IV) clinical trials, under strict
protocols and carefully monitored by an independent
ethics committee), and hence sanctioned for use by the
health authorities of a State, is to be considered in
principle to be a medicine of a preventative character.
Although its side-effects will still need to be monitored
further, serious side-effects will normally not have arisen
in trials or will have been overcome. Except for cases
where particular individuals have medical conditions
which make it impossible, dangerous or medically
inadvisable for the vaccine to be used on them (since
medical science is a relatively inexact science and espe-
cially since there may be patients who fall into one or
more of these categories), its classification as a medicina
principaliter or de se mortifera would be clearly excluded
based on the facts or truths scientifically established and
verified by those trials and it would be classified properly