Science, Medical Groups Oppose Fetal Tissue Ethics Board Recommendations

AIBS joined 76 other scientific, medical, and patient groups in expressing concerns about the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Human Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board’s report that recommends withholding funding for most of the applications submitted to NIH to conduct medical research using human fetal tissue. After reviewing 14 research proposals in July 2020, the Ethics Board recommended in a report sent to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar only fund one of the proposals and withhold funding for the remaining 13. The community letter addressed to Secretary Azar reads, in part: “The evaluation process for publicly funded research must be insulated from politics and allowed to impartially identify promising research proposals that are ethically sound and scientifically and technically rigorous. This is fundamental to the meritocracy of American science that is envied around the world. In this case, each of the research proposals reviewed by the NIH Human Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board had been peer-reviewed and deemed meritorious with the potential to advance scientific discovery to improve human health.” The groups argue that “the Ethics Advisory Board’s recommendations will limit the ethical use of an indispensable biomedical research tool and undermine medical advances in the United States,” urging the...
Source: Public Policy Reports - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news