NIH Announces Details of Human Fetal Tissue Research Restrictions

The latest restrictions require scientists to submit more comprehensive grant applications, and those applications will go through more stringent ethics reviews.

Ashley Yeager

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Last Friday (July 26), the National Institutes of Health announced new restrictions on human fetal tissue research for scientists applying for grants using the material from elective abortions. Starting in September, scientists writing grants for experiments that involve this type of fetal tissue will be required to explain why other tissue types can’t be used and where the researchers plan to get the tissue. Early-career scientists with training awards will not be allowed to use fetal tissue from elective abortions.

“This does a pretty good job of doing what the pro-life people want. It makes grant applications a lot more onerous, substantially and procedurally, while allowing [the Trump administration] to say: ‘We’re not completely banning it,’” Hank Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University, tells Science.

The new NIH requirements are the latest restrictions President Donald Trump’s administration has placed on fetal tissue research. ...

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Meet the Author

Ashley Yeager
Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.
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