On Tuesday, Congress leader Gaurav Pandhi made some controversial claims about the component of Bharat Biotech and ICMR’s Covaxin.
Sharing an RTI document on his Twitter account, the Congress leader claimed that Covaxin contains the serum of a newborn calf. His claims were based on an RTI response from the Central Drugs Controller General to Vikas Patni, the man who filed the query.
Gaurav Pandhi wrtes, “In an RTI response, the Modi Govt has admitted that Covaxin consists newborn calf serum …..which is a portion of clotted blood obtained from less than 20 days young cow-calves, after slaughtering them. THIS IS HEINOUS! This information should have been made public before.”
What did the RTI say?
The RTI asked, “Does vaccines procedure use FBS in making of corona vaccines in any form, composition and ingredient made by Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute and approved by the Indian government of department?”
The answer to the RTI said, “As per information provided by the firm, newborn calf serum is used in the revival process of vero cells which are used in the production of coronavirus during manufacturing of Covaxin bulk vaccine of M/S Bharat Biotech.”
JNU professor Anand Ranganathan wrote on Twitter, “Pl delete this tweet. 1. COVAXIN is the vaccine – it does NOT contain Calf serum as you allege. 2. Calves are NOT slaughtered for it. 3. Calf serum is used ONLY for growing cells to make more of the virus. 4. This information is ALREADY in the public domain since September 2020.”
Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also reacted to the claims. “Those who keep talking about the need for scientific temperament & research are now tweeting their disgust basis some RTI on Covaxin, adding to vaccine hesitancy by bringing religion-based choices to it. Please resist sliding down this slippery slope against vaccines.”
Source: indiatoday
