An NIH fetal tissue research ban is now unfolding. Human embryonic stem cell research funding may be next.
Such politically-motivated actions are bad for science and our country.
NIH fetal tissue research ban
I’ve been concerned for months that NIH might ban funding of both human fetal tissue research and possibly human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research.
Breitbart is now reporting that seventeen currently funded NIH grants doing fetal tissue research will not be continued. I’m not linking to the article because it is full of inaccuracies about the research.
It seems likely that no new grants in this area will be funded as well.
So we are looking at a full ban.
I wrote back in March about how NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya might block fetal tissue & some stem cell research. GOP representatives also sent a letter to Trump asking for a ban on a variety of research including on hESCs. While fetal tissue research was blocked during Trump’s first term, hESC work wasn’t so perhaps that will continue. It’s hard to be sure though.
Stem cell scientists highlight the importance of fetal tissue research
The reality is that US scientists do these kinds of research with great care. In addition, the research provides unique windows into human development and disease. Other kinds of research like that using organoids and human embryo models, while important, cannot substitute.
As a result, a fetal tissue research funding ban will stop progress toward addressing many conditions including birth defects and infertility. If a hESC research funding ban is also implemented, other important work will also halt.
While the California stem cell agency, CIRM, will likely continue to fund such work, it cannot make up for the loss of all NIH-backed research.
The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has issued a statement about its concerns related to the apparent fetal tissue ban. In part it says:
“This critical work is governed by a robust ethical and legal framework that ensures responsible research conduct and public accountability. There is a longstanding oversight process for research using HFT that ensures it is scientifically meritorious, legal, and ethically sound. This framework requires thorough informed consent for tissue donation and prohibits individuals from profiting from acquiring, receiving, or transferring fetal tissue for research. These safeguards protect the rights of donors, uphold public trust, and ensure that research using HFT proceeds responsibly while continuing to deliver vital scientific advances.
We urge NIH to reject political pressure to discontinue research with HFT and instead reaffirm its role as a champion of evidence-based biomedical science.”
NIH funding more generally often seems to be guided by politics these days. For example, freezes on all grants to places like UCLA just don’t make any sense.
Thousands of jobs are being lost due to these actions that also slow biomedical research progress.
It’s an all-around losing situation for America.
Dear Paul:
In this moment when we have a government that is so destructive to the health and well being of its own citizens and immigrants in so many assaulting ways, it is ironic that the same government promotes one clear policy that is beneficial, though perhaps not for the purpose of beneficence.
If we are to be moral scientists, we must not promote research that is predicated on the death of its human research subjects and whose practice erodes the greater humanity of our society. The promise of future good is not a morally-acceptable justification for pursuing research that is predicated on the intended killing of living human research subjects, which include electively aborted fetal age human beings, i.e., fetuses, and embryonic age human beings whether they are conceived by fertilization or by bioengineering.
The disregard for the lives or weaker, self-defenseless human research subjects by scientists who promote their destruction for their research is morally no different than the many similar injuries that our current government visits upon it citizens and immigrants that it holds in low esteem.
James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D.
SALT