The policy changes won’t affect privately funded research
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Wednesday it is ending medical research by government scientists using human fetal tissue, overriding the advice of scientists that there’s no other way to tackle some health problems and handing abortion opponents a major victory.
The Health and Human Services Department said in a statement that government-funded research by universities that involves fetal tissue can continue, subject to additional scrutiny.
The policy changes will not affect privately funded research, officials said.
Fetal tissue is used in research on HIV and childhood cancers, treatments that enlist the body’s immune system to battle cancer, and the hunt for a vaccine against the Zika virus, a cause of birth defects. The tissue from elective abortions would otherwise be discarded. Scientists use it to produce mice that model how the human immune system works.
Ending the use of fetal tissue by the National Institutes of Health has been a priority for anti-abortion activists, a core element of President Donald Trump’s political base.
The government’s top medical scientist, NIH Director Francis Collins, said as recently as last December that he believes « there’s strong evidence that scientific benefits come from fetal tissue research. »
A senior administration official said the decision announced Wednesday was the president’s call and not Collins’. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The government has funded research using fetal tissue for decades, under administrations of both political parties.
