Trump administration has quietly barred NIH scientists from acquiring fetal tissue

[Judi Lynn]

By Meredith WadmanDec. 7, 2018 , 9:40 PM

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has ordered scientists employed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to stop acquiring new human fetal tissue for experiments, ScienceInsider has learned. The suspension, imposed this past September without a public announcement, came as the government launched a review of all fetal tissue research funded by the federal government. The pause affects two laboratories run by the Bethesda, Maryland-based agency, NIH officials say. In one case, it disrupted a study probing how the virus that causes AIDS initially colonizes human tissues.

“We were all poised to go and then the bombshell was dropped,” says HIV researcher Warner Greene, director of the Gladstone Center for HIV Cure Research in San Francisco, California, who was collaborating with an NIH laboratory that received the order. “The decision completely knocked our collaboration off the rails. We were devastated.”

The order expands the scope of the Trump administration's interventions into federally funded research that uses human fetal tissue from elective abortions, which is legal but fiercely opposed by anti-abortion groups. In September, it canceled a Food and Administration (FDA) contract for acquiring human fetal tissue for testing candidate drugs. This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees NIH, told researchers at the University of California (UC), San Francisco, that it would be extending a contract for work involving human fetal tissue for just 90 days instead of the usual 1 year, prompting media reports that the department was preparing to cancel the contract. HHS denied those reports, saying it has made no decisions regarding federal funding for human fetal tissue research pending the outcome of the ongoing review of all such work.

Today, however, an NIH spokesperson confirmed that the agency asked staff scientists "to pause procurements of fetal tissue" pending the outcome of the HHS review. The suspension applies only to scientists who work directly for NIH's intramural program, and not extramural researchers who typically work at universities and receive grants from the government. It affects two laboratories, NIH officials say. One is operated by the National Eye Institute. (Fetal retinal tissue is used to study eye diseases.) The other is run by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “Yes, we have instituted a pause of further procurements [of human fetal tissue] pending the audit/review that HHS is undertaking,” an NIAID spokeperson confirmed.

More:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/trump-administration-has-quietly-barred-nih-scientists-acquiring-fetal-tissue

[Snackshack]

1. Republicans

Do not want diseases cured, there is no money in it.