---

Pro-life Groups Work to Have Merck Pharmaceuticals Reconsider Abortion-Tainted Vaccines

27 babies deliberately aborted in controlled setting in order to extract live virus

NORTH BRANCH, NJ, May 3, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Human Life International and Children of God for Life joined forces as a Merck Shareholder Meeting last month winning enough votes to have their pro-life resolution considered.

"As stockholders in Merck we are particularly distressed at the violation of human rights that occurred in the early 1960s in the development of two cell lines, the RA 27/3 and the WI-38, which were used to create the MMR vaccine. We are even more distressed that this same pattern of human rights violations continues to take place with the PER-C6 cell line that Merck has taken license for in developing a new AIDS vaccine", said HLI's Fr. Euteneuer in his opening statements at the annual Merck Shareholder meeting on April 27th in North Branch, NJ.

He continued a relentless pounding of Merck's unethical behavior by admonishing the board, "The RA 27/3 obtained its tissue from the last in a line of 27 babies who were deliberately aborted in a controlled setting in order to extract the live virus. These cell lines were thus created at the cost of dozens of innocent human lives with the full knowledge of Merck researchers."

The room fell silent as Fr. Euteneuer concluded, "We ask Merck for two things: full disclosure about the nature of Merck's involvement in this gruesome business, and the withdrawal of the unethical vaccine from the market as soon as possible."

Debbie Vinnedge of Children of God for Life who surprised the fidgeting board members by stating, "On behalf of over half a million parents and medical professionals nationwide who have joined our Campaign for Ethical Vaccines, I would like to begin by thanking you Mr. Gilmartin and the members of the Board for bringing your ethically produced single dose measles and mumps vaccines back to the market last summer."

While the chairman of the meeting ignored the pro-lifers several shareholders told the meeting they were shocked by the revelations and demanded action. At the end of the meeting the pro-lifers had more than the necessary votes to continue to pursue the pro-life resolution.

Despite the victory, perhaps one of the most troubling aspects about the shareholder meeting came from the company's own admission that they had partnered with the Bill Gates Foundation, one of the larger supporters of Planned Parenthood worldwide, in order to fight the HIV epidemic in Africa. Merck intends to use the aborted fetal cell line PER C6 to develop its new HIV vaccine.

Read HLI's Full Statementt:
http://hli.org/merck_merck_meeting2004.html

Read Children of God for Life's Statement
http://www.cogforlife.org/merck2004boardstatement.htm

 Back to Top

---

MORE NEWS: LifeSiteNews.com Home Page  Last 10 Days   Archives   Special Reports

Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.