| International News

The organization wrote to all provincial health ministers in early December, urging the ministries to replace Pentacel, a vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, polio and other illnesses, with Pediacel, a similar vaccine made by the same company Sanofi Pasteur.

Dr. Rene Leiva, a family physician in Ottawa and member of Canadian Physicians for Life hopes Catholics will pressure provincial governments to provide Pediacel. In Ontario, the contract for Pentacel comes up for renewal in March 2007, leaving a small window of opportunity for concerned parents, doctors and lawyers to demand change.

Leiva said there is a precedent for the government buying two kinds of vaccines, because it does so in the case of Mumps, Measles and Rubella.

“This is not just about vaccines,” said Leiva in a Jan. 8 telephone interview. “This is just the tip of iceberg. This is about moral coercion of the conscience.”

“It’s a wake up call for all of us,” he said. “If we do not do anything right now we cannot complain about embryonic stem cell research.”

Leiva warned of a “domino effect” because if Catholics allow vaccines from using cells from aborted fetuses, the pharmaceutical companies will “connect the dots” to produce cures through embryonic stem cell research. This will put people in need of lifesaving treatments in a moral bind if no alternatives are offered, he said, noting that people will feel compelled to use the treatments.

He noted that when U.S. President George W. Bush moved to limit embryonic stem cell research, about 80 Nobel Laureates signed a statement pointing out there was already a precedent in vaccines. He warned about the danger of using them contributing to the habituation of sin, numbing the conscience.

“We should do something,” Leiva said.

Leiva first became aware of the problem in the winter of 2005, when an Ottawa priest gave him a CD produced by U.S.-based Children of God for Life that showed commonly used vaccines were made from aborted fetuses.

At first, Leiva had trouble believing it, so he did his own research only to discover that all the vaccines used for children in Canada were developed from aborted fetuses, and morally contaminated.

In June 2005, the Pontifical Academy for Life, an advisory body to the Holy See, came out with a moral analysis on the vaccines, urging doctors and parents that they have a duty to put pressure on authorities to offer alternatives.

Leiva started hearing from parents who were threatening not to have their children vaccinated at all, something Leiva does not recommend. The academy also advises parents to get their children inoculated.

“There remains a moral duty to continue to fight and employ every lawful means in order to make life difficult for the pharmaceutical industries which act unscrupulously and unethically,” says the academy’s analysis. “However, the burden of this important battle cannot and must not fall on innocent children and on the health situation of the population – especially with regard to pregnant women.”

Vaccinations against Rubella, for example, prevent the illness from spreading to pregnant women and causing serious birth defects. Someone who refused inoculation could be morally responsible for contagion-caused birth defects.

The document stressed that in cases where the health effects were not as dire, conscientious objection might be the appropriate response.

Dr. John Shea, a retired radiologist on the board of the Catholic Civil Rights League said using vaccines created from cell lines obtained from aborted fetuses is “remote cooperation” but also advises that vaccines should be used in cases where there is a serious threat to the life of the child or to contagion in the community.

Shea believes the Catholic community should organize through Catholic doctors, lawyers and media to exert pressure on government to provide alternatives.

If they refuse, and some Catholics object and choose conscientious objection, “that’s where it becomes a civil rights and a legal and political issue,” he said.

“If they push this way we have to push back,” he said.