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The US Department of Health and Human Services announced yesterday (June 5) that scientists at the National Institutes of Health will no longer be able to study human fetal tissue, although projects funded by the US government at external institutions can continue with increased ethical oversight.
An anonymous senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration tells the Associated Press that the decision was Trump’s. “Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration,” HHS’s statement reads.
Anti–abortion rights advocates praised the move, while a number of scientists expressed disappointment.
“Prohibiting valuable research that uses fetal tissue that is otherwise going to be discarded doesn’t make any sense,” Lawrence Goldstein, a regenerative medicine specialist at the University of California, San Diego, tells the AP. “It blocks important future research vital to the development of ...
