Trump administration imposes new restrictions on fetal tissue research

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post



By Amy Goldstein June 5 at 12:53 PM

The Trump administration on Wednesday ended medical research by government scientists using fetal tissue and also cancelled a multi-million-dollar contract for a university laboratory that uses the material to test new HIV treatments.

The decision is a victory for anti-abortion advocates and a major disappointment to scientists who say the tissue collected from elective abortions has been instrumental to unlocking the secrets of diseases that range from HIV to cancer to Zika, vaccine production and treatment for illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease.

“Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration,” said the six-paragraph statement from the Health and Human Services Department.

The immediate loser is a University of California at San Francisco laboratory whose multi-year contract with the government to test HIV herapies was terminated without explanation. The government was its sole source of funding.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-administration-imposes-new-restrictions-on-fetal-tissue-research/2019/06/05/b13433c0-8709-11e9-a491-25df61c78dc4_story.html

[democratisphere]

1. drumpf loves destroying anything for the greater good.

No one person should have this kind of power to grossly abuse.

[yaesu]

2. I bet if research could make hair plugs better he would be all for it. nt

[riversedge]

3. omg. no no. I am feeling so helpless at this point. Just on a whim, Trump destroys multi

years scientific research. just damn him!

[Lars39]

4. Brain drain in 3...2...1...

[MineralMan]

5. Undoing the harm Trump has done will take years.

That will be the primary job of the next Democratic President. I want a President who knows the job of being President, so that work can go smoothly and quickly.

I know of only one candidate with those credentials.

[BigmanPigman]

8. I asked various Dems I know how long they estimate

it will take if we are ever able to return to normal and every single one said decades. Not in my lifetime.

[MineralMan]

9. If we have a Democratic President, House, and Senate,

It can be done in four years, an with progress made toward better options. At age 73, that is what I hope for, so can have some optimism in my waning years.

It's up to us. We can do it if we want to badly enough. We shall see.

[BigmanPigman]

10. I hope you're right.

I just made a poll with that question..... "How long to normalcy?".

[jmowreader]

11. With that setup...

...we will need to also expel every Republican from Congress. ALL of them.

[MineralMan]

12. No, we wouldn't.

We'd have majorities and control of both the House and Senate. Screw the Republicans. Let them sit and squirm.

[jmowreader]

13. We had that in 2009-10 too

Without sending the Republicans home, Little can be accomplished.

[A Morpheus Felinae]

6. This "thing" is a monster

I never knew I could feel such a level of hatred for a fellow human. If indeed it actually is human.

[lordsummerisle]

7. More red meat for the base n/t

[Judi Lynn]

14. Trump's fetal tissue ban will hinder HIV cure, Zika research

HIV cure research relied on fetal tissue. After Trump's ban, such research is officially impeded

NICOLE KARLIS
JUNE 6, 2019 11:00PM (UTC)

On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would no longer be funding research that required fetal tissue from elective abortions. Fetal tissue has been used in research to find vaccines for polio, measles, rabies, and is being used to develop therapies for HIV and, most recently, to better understand the Zika virus.

“Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration,” the statement from U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) said. “Intramural research that requires new acquisition of fetal tissue from elective abortions will not be conducted.”

No current research projects conducted outside the NIH, such as at universities, that are funded by federal grants will be affected during their project periods. However, for new research grants an ethics advisory board will have to approve the project, “in light of the ethical considerations.”

In September 2018, the HHS discontinued a contract between Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. and the Food and Drug Administration which provided human fetal tissue from elective abortions to develop testing protocols. As a result, HHS launched a review of all research of fetal tissue from elective abortions. In the announcement on Wednesday, HHS said it will be discontinuing a contract it had with the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), specifically a $2 million annual contract which has used fetal tissue to create mice with immune systems similar to humans to test HIV therapies.

More:
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/06/trumps-fetal-tissue-ban-will-hinder-hiv-cure-zika-research/