As of this week, The Trump Administration has called for a review of all research involving fetal tissue. The Washington Post states this comes with the cancellation of a nearly $16,000 contract between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Advanced Bioscience Resources, a California-based non-profit, to provide the FDA with human fetal tissue. The cancellation was followed by an announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) claiming they will begin auditing, “all acquisitions involving human fetal tissue,” and will start a “comprehensive review,” of all fetal tissue research.

 

The HHS claims that the contract was canceled because it, “was not sufficiently assured that the contract included the appropriate protections applicable to fetal tissue research or met all other procurement requirements,” according to Nature. This cancellation comes after 85 members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, claiming that Advanced Bioscience Resources are selling “the body parts of children” for a profit. In 2016 the company was referred to the U.S. Department of Justice for investigation. The HSS also claims, according to CNN, that the administration will try to push for fetal tissue alternatives to be “funded and accelerated.”

 

Scientists have argued the significance of fetal tissue research, such as National Institutes of Health Associate Director for Science Policy, Carrie Wolinetz, who stated to NPR that, “Fetal tissue can contain information – about structural features, or the architecture of organs – that cells in a dish alone can’t provide. And this is sometimes very important to our understanding of disease.” The FDA planned on using said tissue for researching involving implantation into mice, according to Nature. The mice, which would lack immune systems, would be given ‘human-like’ immune systems from the tissues to allow FDA researchers to evaluate the safety of various drugs.

 

The ethical argument comes from the fact that fetal tissue often comes from aborted fetuses. Alta Charo, professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, emailed NPR about why this is the case, stating, “Miscarriages are not often an available source, as they do not take place in a controlled environment and may be due to genetic or other anomalies that would render the cadaveric tissues useless. Therefore, the tissue usually comes from a fetus that has been aborted.”

 

According to Scientific American, the fetal tissue used for research comes from just a handful of Planned Parenthood clinics in two states. The U.S. National Institutes of Health funded 164 projects involving fetal tissue in 2014, at a cost of $76 million. The majority of fetal tissue is used for research on “infectious diseases, especially HIV/AIDS; in the study of retinal function and disease; and in studies of normal and anomalous fetal development.” Fetal tissue can also be used for clinical functions, such as a trial described by Scientific America in which “stem cells from fetal spinal cords were implanted to treat spinal-cord injuries.” Researchers in the United Kingdom and Spain have also used fetal tissues in a study to combat Parkinson’s disease, in which the dopaminergic neurons from aborted fetuses were transplanted directly into the brains of patients.