FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 7, 2020

Contact: Michael Clauw, mclauw@campaignforaccountability.org, 202.780.5750

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Earlier today, the Times Examiner republished a statement from anti-choice group, Children of God for Life (CoGfL), denouncing efforts by Moderna, Inc., a biotechnology company, to use its messenger RNA-based therapeutics technology to develop a vaccine to fight COVID-19 called mRNA-1273. Moderna’s research uses a new, faster process to create the vaccine that includes a short segment of messenger RNA that is made in a lab and does not contain any coronavirus, thereby decreasing its infection risk. CoGfL and other anti-abortion groups, however, oppose Moderna researchers’ use of a cell line originally obtained from donated fetal tissue in development of this technique. CoGfL’s statement further asserted that alternative treatments already exist; specifically, the malaria medicine Hydroxychloroquine that President Trump has championed, but which medical experts caution is yet unproven and can have serious adverse side effects.

“Anti-abortion ideologues are fighting the development of a vaccine created by scientists using donated fetal tissue, even if it could save hundreds of thousands of lives,” said Alice Huling, Counsel at Campaign for Accountability.

“Parroting President Trump by spreading the falsehood that a COVID-19 treatment already exists is dangerous, possibly even deadly, and efforts to find a real cure should be encouraged. If mRNA-1273 is found to be effective in the fight against COVID-19, anti-abortion zealots can choose not to use it to save themselves or their family members, but they should not be able to deny potentially life-saving protection to the rest of us.”