Canadian Bishops Issue Clarification on Notice Regarding AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson Vaccines

A vial of some of the first 500,000 of the two million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses that Canada has secured through a deal with the Serum Institute of India in partnership with Verity Pharma at a facility in Milton, Ont., Canada, on March 3, 2021. Carlos Osorio - POOL/The Canadian Press

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) clarified on March 11 regarding an earlier notice they sent to Catholics, recommending the choice of alternatives over the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines due to their use of “abortion-derived cell lines in their development, production, and confirmatory testing.”

“This Note was published in response to questions from Catholics who were concerned about the moral permissibility of receiving currently-approved COVID-19 vaccines,” wrote the national assembly of the bishops, in their clarification of a notice (pdf) they sent on Tuesday. “The Note did not refer to, nor intend to question the medical efficacy of any vaccine.”