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Monday, October 25, 2010

Flu Vaccine Query

I know this has little or no relevance medically but I am curious to know what Vegans have to say about the flu vaccine being cultured in chicken eggs. I already know that PETA frowns upon this.

I have no problem with it because I believe that whatever I eat I can wear or use. For example I like eating beef so that gives me the right to wear leather but I still have issue with people who wear fur because I know you motherf*ckers aren't eating the animals that the fur came from. It is a waste not, want not approach to carnivorous endeavors. Some people have issue with eating animals no matter what but I want to know how they feel about using chicken eggs to grow vaccines.

Seriously, I am super curious to know. What's your opinion?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think most vegans are even aware that flu vaccines are cultured in chicken eggs? I doubt it.

Anonymous said...

I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian and a pharmacy student. I think being a vegetarian in the medical field is just about one of the hardest situations out there. I am part of a community whose knowledge base is partially built on the testing, and sometimes torture, of animals (and even humans back in the day - criminals or the "insane"). I have just learned not to think about some things. Otherwise, I probably would not be able to sleep at night.

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Anonymous said...

The human body also produces albumen, and the eggs aren't fertilized. Seems like the stem cell debate if you ask me.

R. May said...

An aside on the fur....my grandma gave me her old fur jacket. From back in the day when wearing fur wasn't bad. I haven't been able to bring myself to wear it because it makes me nauseous, but if I can get over that, I will wear it as the animals have been long dead and I'm recycling.

Chantix said...

Vaccines are important tools that we use to battle diseases. They use chicken embryos to make the vaccine.

Ellie said...

Most of the vegan parents I know or have heard about are usually nonvaxers. Not ALL of them, mind you, but a lot of them. The vegetarians I know don't mind and get their kids vaxed, but vegans usually tend to be crunchier on the granola scale.

Jeremy said...

My vegan roommate is anti-flu shot on the basis that she is terrified of needles. I imagine some vegans out there get their panties in a twist about it, but a lot of them don't have any moral objection about using animal-derived products for healthcare reasons.

Anonymous said...

I'm not vegan myself, but I have several friends and all of them refuse to get the vaccine because of the egg issue.

Anonymous said...

@ R. May. My grandmother had a fur coat as well. My mom had it made into 2 teddy bears. One for me and one for my sister. It is a great way to remember her and recycle a fur coat we would never use.

Anonymous said...

As for 'torture' of laboratory reserarch, depends on whose definition of 'torture'. Sure, back in the day when we were working out doses of platinum chemos we continued to administer cis-platin to the lab mice 'til their kidneys shut down, but...

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online pharmacy reviews said...

I don't see anything wrong with it. Like you said, I enjoy eating egg so anything I eat I have no issue using for other purposes, especially if it can save lives.

- Jessica Greer

cyrell said...

@ anonymus 3..the eggs are fertilized because the vacine can only be produced with the help of living cells..and eggg white and yolk are not per se living cells like the one of a living breathing animal.

But on the fertilized eggs the cells start to grow to form a tiny chicken.

just google for flu and fertilised eggs and you can see eggs where part of the shell is cut away and you see the blood vessels and the cell clump which is not yet a chicken.

Here is a harmless link

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/wallpaper/science/photos/influenza/cultivating-flu-vaccine/

@ anonymus 1

Yes, the vegans I know are much more aware about health and medical issues then the common omnivore costumer.

Vegans are normally very well informed about animal research and all that stuff.
It is really annoying that most omnivore show absolute no knowledge..no matter if farm animal, medicine or other things.

As of the issue with chicken embryos and vaccine..I think fertilised eggs are a much cleaner way of producing vaccines.

You need less space,less equipment, there is less the chance of contamination then with breeding vaccines on monkey kidneys for example.

That nearly extincted a certain species of apes.

I am not sure if it was with the polio vaccine or something else.

It was a couple of years ago when I read about that. The goverment forbid the hunt for these apes and now the population is stable.

But also the use of eggs is just another step on the ladder.

Using human cells for making vaccines is not so new and I hope that is also soon possible for other vaccines.

Not only because of the animals but also because there are the least risks.

If you are allergic to egg you can not get the flu vaccine...with human produced vaccines there seems to be no risk of allergic reactions.

I think like with insuline, that was first isolated from pigs and which is now produced by microorganism, that in the future we will use big tanks with cells and/or microorganismn to produce vaccines, hormones and anything else what is now produced with animals/animalparts.

It is cheaper and safer.

Also testing on animals is just not safe enough because animals react differently to us.

The gap is just too wide and all the scandals show us that we need to find a safer solution.

Testing on breed human cells is safer for us..and you do not even need embryonal stem cells.

Stem cells can be breed from the *menstrual material* of healthy women, but also can be breed from the spinal marrow of grown humans.

So if you find it a crime to use frozen embryos, there is also an other solution. Pay someone to donate a bit of spinal fluid/marrow or use the blood from the umbilingual cord of a healthy child..this is also a possible solution

cyrell said...

part 2




@ anonymus 6

' As for 'torture' of laboratory reserarch, depends on whose definition of 'torture'. Sure, back in the day when we were working out doses of platinum chemos we continued to administer cis-platin to the lab mice 'til their kidneys shut down, but...'

I think it is torture when animals are cut open without proper sedation, kept in too small cages, are seperated and isolated when they are social animals and so on.

Yes,also today animals are tortured..animal research is not a petting zoo where animals are feed and kept as pets.

They are injected toxic material, are burnt, electrocuted, cooled down until they die and so on and on...

Body parts are amputed, organs are manipulated, cut out of the body, treated with chemials until they stop working, toxic stuff is injected to provoke strokes and infarcts...

I think that is torture but maybe you do not, so maybe you think humans should volunteer themselves for that because it is obviously not torture.

http://www.aerzte-gegen-tierversuche.de/en/?6d01b8521ebe21a63931ad0a8468adcf=ca7b707501191f0d984a03ece02c3eb8


This is an informative, interesting site made by doctors about methods of animal research and how good, reliable they are and if there are better methods.

Also information about the many(recent) failures of animal research where medication caused bad reactions in humans and was taken of the market, but the animal research showed nothing, or the people ignored it...

..because humans are not animals, so they needed also testing on humans to be sure.

Problem is that bad reactions may only show up after months, but the research on humans is often only going on for weeks