LifeNews: NIH Spends $13.5 Million on Aborted Baby Parts to Transplant Their Brain Tissue Into Mice

WASHINGTON, DC – A new government contract uncovered by CNS News shows the federal government continues to spend taxpayer dollars on research using aborted baby body parts.

The National Institute of Health contract is with University of California- San Francisco. The contract provides money for fetal body parts to conduct experiments involving “humanized mice,” according to the report. NIH is an agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The contract, which began in December 2013 continues through December 2020, according to NIH.

“The actual total amount of this contract, including all options, is $13,799,501 for a full performance period through December 5, 2020,” the NIH told CNSNews.com. “We have obligated $9,554,796 to date.”

Aborted baby body parts used in the experiments were taken from healthy, later-term unborn babies. According to the report, the aborted babies were 18 to 24 weeks gestation from “women with normal pregnancies before elective termination for nonmedical reasons.”

Researchers used the babies’ intestines in their experiments, according to a 2017 journal article about the experiments.

Another article indicated aborted babies’ livers and thymuses also were used. According to the report:

Similarly, a 2008 journal article describing how the UCSF professor who is the principle investigator for this contract engineers one version of the mouse required by the contract, said the professor used human fetal livers and thymuses taken from babies at 20-to-24 weeks gestational age.

The contract—which NIH calls “Humanized Mouse Models for HIV Therapeutics Development”–follows up on a similar contract (“Tissue Based Small Animal Model for HIV Drug Discovery”) that the NIH maintained with UCSF from Dec. 6, 2006 through Dec. 5, 2013.

The total value of that previous contract was $14,628,247, according to NIH.

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While the NIH did respond to CNSNews.com’s inquiry about the monetary value of these two contracts, it did not specifically respond to sixteen questions about its current “Humanized Mouse Models for HIV Therapeutics Development” contract with UCSF. CNSNews.com sent these questions to the Department of Health and Human Services (of which NIH is a part) and UCSF. NIH and the University of California responded with statements.

President Donald Trump’s administration has been taking steps to stop the purchasing of aborted baby parts with tax dollars.

In September, it canceled a Food and Drug Administration contract to acquire body parts from aborted babies to be transplanted into so-called humanized mice. The grisly experiments allow mice to have a functioning human immune system for research purposes.

The now-canceled contract was with Advanced Bioscience Resources, a company that buys and sells aborted baby parts from Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses.

Although the move was a good step, one pro-life group said more protections are needed to ensure the FDA and HHS do not sign other agreements to purchase aborted baby parts in the future.

“Canceling a single contract and conducting a review is a small step forward, but overall is completely inadequate,” said Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement.

The department appears to be moving in that direction. In a statement in September, the Trump administration said HHS is also conducting an audit of all acquisitions involving human fetal tissue to “ensure conformity with procurement and human fetal tissue research laws and regulations.”

The agency said it would continue reviewing alternatives to human fetal tissue in HHS funded research “and will ensure that efforts to develop such alternatives are funded and accelerated.”

Earlier, some 48 national and state pro-life leaders urged HHS to end the government’s use of aborted fetal tissue for research and turn to ethical alternatives.