Are COVID vaccines evil?

In a video, Tucker Carlson claims that COVID mRNA vaccines are deadly and harm people, that they use tissue from aborted babies, and that the companies behind them should lose their legal shield and be jailed.

Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that need host cells to grow. Since human cells are sometimes best for growing human viruses, some vaccines use cell lines derived from two elective pregnancy terminations back in the 60s. Because these cell lines are practically immortal, manufacturers can continue using this cell line; there are no new sources of human fetal cells.

While the viral vector COVID vaccine does use fetal cells in vaccine production, the mRNA vaccines do not. Because we are only synthesizing the mRNA, and not growing the virus, plasmids are used instead of human or other animal cells. Human cell lines were used in the early stages of mRNA technology development only to research that they would theoretically work. However, these cells are not used in mRNA vaccine production.

The Vatican advised adherents in 2005  about the acceptability of receiving some live, attenuated vaccines. To further clarify that statement, the Vatican issued another statement in 2017, which reads: “The moral obligation to guarantee the vaccination coverage necessary for the safety of others is no less urgent.”

Pope Francis, who was vaccinated in January 2021, is quoted as saying, “I believe that morally everyone must take the vaccine.” Given the moral obligation to protect one’s community and the unlikelihood that people will get to choose vaccines the way they choose toppings at Subway, people of all faiths should take the vaccine they are offered.

But do the vaccines harm people?

Careful reviews by CDC experts have found nine deaths in the United States linked to a rare blood-clotting condition after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. No other deaths have been confirmed as caused by any COVID shot, out of hundreds of millions of doses given. That works out to far less than one death per million doses, many times lower than the risk of dying from COVID itself.

Some teens and young adults can get mild myocarditis after an mRNA dose, but most cases clear with rest, and catching COVID is still more likely to hurt the heart than the vaccine. In most people, being vaccinated on shots actually reduced the risk of strokes, heart attacks, and clots.

The guidance cites a paper as evidence that vaccines cause autoimmune disease, but the authors say “we conclude that mRNA-based vaccinations are not associated with an increased risk of most AI-CTDs”

The idea that COVID vaccines cause “turbo cancer” has no scientific backing. Even the most potent carcinogens take years to cause cancer. It would be some time before we saw spikes in cancer. Epidemiological data show no increase in cancer linked to the vaccines. Reports of rising early-onset cancers started in the 1990s, long before the COVID vaccines existed.

With all this in mind, no. COVID vaccines do not appear to be evil.