An Italian priest dies as a result of a corona infection. He vehemently refused vaccination.
Genoa – Conspiracy myths are not a new phenomenon. But especially in times of crisis like the corona pandemic, they are booming. The development of the corona vaccine in particular has raised questions for many people. The case of a pastor from Italy shows that misinformation can have devastating consequences.
According to media reports, Don Paolo Romeo is said to have vehemently refused corona vaccinations. The man is said to have assumed that the vaccines contained “aborted embryos”. Don Paolo Romeo was the parish priest of the Abbey of Santo Stefano in the city of Genoa when he died at the age of 51 from a Covid-19 infection. This was reported by L’Unione Sarda, a daily newspaper in Sardinia.
Deadly corona infection: Friends and colleagues tried to change the mind of the pastor
As the daily newspaper further reported, both friends and colleagues tried to change the clergyman’s mind. However, Don Paolo Romeo could not be convinced and continued to refuse a corona vaccination.
According to information from the International Business Times, Romeo is said to have believed in conspiracy myths that were also held by supporters of the French Catholic Archbishop Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre. The thesis: Corona vaccines would contain cells from aborted embryos.
In fact, corona vector vaccines such as Astrazeneca and Johnson&Johnson use cell lines originally derived from human fetuses to produce them. However, “the fetuses are not currently aborted and the abortion was not carried out to obtain cells for virus production,” a spokeswoman for the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) told Bayerischer Rundfunk. “In each case, an embryo was aborted once – for the personal reasons of the woman concerned – and a permanently growing cell line was established with the corresponding cells, which can be frozen and used again and again,” the PEI continues.
Corona vaccinations are based on different cell lines
Contrary to the priest’s opinion, the corona vaccines do not contain any cells from aborted fetuses. “You take cells and these cells are then cultivated and expanded, i.e. multiplied and frozen again and processed so that they can be used again,” said Katja Schenke-Layland, Director of the Natural Science and Medical Institute at the University of Tübingen and member of the Central Ethics Committee. Commission for Stem Cell Research of the Robert Koch Institute, opposite Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Which cell lines are used for a vaccine can be read transparently, for example on the website of the Paul Ehrlich Institute. At Astrazeneca, line 293 HEK was used, which was laid out in 1973. This cell line goes back to embryonic kidney cells. At Johnson & Johnson, the PER-C6 cell line was obtained from the retinal tissue of an embryo that was aborted in 1985.
According to media reports, the unvaccinated pastor was infected with the corona virus in January. As his condition worsened, he was taken to a hospital. After the death of the parish priest, the Santo Stefano Abbey paid tribute to him on social media. “May the Lord reward him for all the good he has done here on earth and may he forgive his mistakes if there are any,” a Facebook post said. According to the Italian regional daily Il Secolo XIX, more than 300 people gathered at the church of Santo Stefano for Romeo’s funeral.
According to Jörn Didas, the ideas as to why people are against vaccinations have always been very different. In the FR interview, he explained how conspiracy stories and esotericism are related and why society needs a long-term strategy against it. (cheese)
