Vaccine Confident mark
An initiative to help pharmacists strengthen vaccine confidence in their patients and communities

Address Concerns About Religious Beliefs

Some patients may lack confidence in vaccines due to religious concerns, even though many religious groups have issued statements that clarify their beliefs and support getting vaccinated. As you interact with members of faith-focused communities who express concerns about vaccination, listen to the words they use and ask yourself whether their concerns are along religious lines or are about safety and efficacy. By learning more about specific religions, you will be better prepared to respond in a meaningful way that addresses the individual’s underlying concerns.

Note: This content is intended to provide basic religious context to support pharmacist-patient conversations. Religious beliefs are often complex and nuanced. Space does not allow an exhaustive consideration here. Read on to learn more, to enable you to have respectful conversations or ask respectful questions. Encourage patients to discuss personal religious concerns in greater depth than you can with their faith leaders.

Key Points

  • Judaism expects its believers to be proactive in maintaining health. Pikuach nefesh, acting to save a life, is a positive commandment overarching even laws for keeping the Sabbath. With contagious diseases, one’s own actions help or hinder transmitting the illness to bystanders. Jewish dietary laws (“keeping kosher”) apply to foods, not medications. COVID-19 vaccines do not contain components of porcine origin, and all COVID-19 vaccines are given by injection.
  • Islam espouses principles of preventing harm (izalat al dharar yuzaal) and serving the public interest (maslahat al-ummah), each of which favors vaccination. The Qur'ān forbids the consumption of several animals (e.g., “the flesh of swine”). COVID-19 vaccines do not contain components of porcine origin, and medications are given special status within Islam.
  • Most Christian denominations have no scriptural or doctrinal objection to vaccination per se. Denominations that rely on faith healing (e.g., Christian Scientists, several small sects) may view vaccination as unnecessary or even suggesting unfaithfulness to God’s will. With contagious diseases, one’s own actions help or hinder transmitting the illness to bystanders. Pope Francis recorded a video for Catholics across the Americas in 2021 to encourage COVID-19 vaccination.
  • Christians, Muslims, and others may express concern over vaccines manufactured using cell lines (e.g., HEK293, PER.C6) with remote links to specific fetuses aborted several decades ago (e.g., viral-vector COVID-19 vaccines from Johnson & Johnson/Janssen). Those abortions were not conducted to create these cell lines. This lack of intent breaks a complicity link that could otherwise make vaccination unacceptable. Messenger RNA in vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna and protein subunit vaccines produced by Novavax are chemically synthesized, not grown in cell culture. There are no human cells present in any vaccine. Several faith-based groups have issued statements saying the net good from COVID-19 vaccines outweighs concerns about fetal cell lines.
  • Cell lines with remote fetal origins are not the same as fetal tissue. None of the authorized COVID-19 vaccines contain any tissue from an aborted fetus.

Information for Pharmacy Teams

Use APhA’s conversation guide for Addressing Concerns Related to Religious Beliefs. This resource can be used as a playbook to effectively talk with patients and address their specific concerns.
Read a success story about community pharmacist Faheem Rashidi, PharmD, who discusses his work with the Muslim community: Gaining Community Trust by Speaking Patients’ Languages.
Review How to Talk About Vaccines With Someone Who Is Jewish When You Aren’t Jewish to gain an understanding of the basics of Judaism and the support for vaccination within Judaism.
Review How to Talk About Vaccines With Someone Who Is Muslim When You Aren’t Muslim to gain an understanding of the basics of Islam and the support for vaccination within Islam.
Review How to Talk About Vaccines With Someone Who Is Christian When You Aren’t Christian to gain an understanding of the basics of Christianity, the support for vaccination within Christianity, and the most common objections to vaccines that a Christian may have.

Information for Patients

Refer patients to the statement from the seminar held by the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences on the use of pork gelatin and the statement from the Kashrus and Medical Information Service on porcine and other animal-derived ingredients in non-oral medications for support of the use of porcine-derived medical products.
Direct Catholics and others opposed to abortion to the Vatican Note on the Morality of Using Some COVID-19 Vaccines, which states it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines because of the remoteness from abortion and the grave consequences of COVID-19 infection.