Trump Administration Restricts Funding for Fetal Tissue Research

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on June 5, 2019 that it will restrict federal funding for medical research that uses human fetal tissue from elective abortions. According to the department’s statement, “Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration.” The decision is the result of a review launched by HHS in September 2018 to examine all human fetal tissue research after the department terminated a contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc., which supplied fetal tissue to the Food and Drug Administration for drug-testing research. HHS cancelled the contract because it was “not sufficiently assured that the contract included the appropriate protections applicable to fetal tissue research or met all other procurement requirements.” Under the new policy, all intramural research, or research conducted within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), involving the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortion, will be discontinued. There are currently three such active research projects at NIH. An annual $2 million contract with the University of California, San Francisco for research involving aborted fetal tissue to study HIV/AIDS will also be cancelled. Extramural research projects, including research funded by NIH grants at universities, involving aborted fetal tissue will be required to go through an additio...
Source: Public Policy Reports - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news