On Jan. 23, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services barred the permitted use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in research funded by the National Institutes of Health. Human fetal tissue has previously been used to develop vaccines and advance treatments for diseases such as rabies, HIV and cancer.
In a statement provided to The Herald, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said that the decision, which supersedes all prior NIH guidance, is “about advancing science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease.”
This policy change is part of an ongoing effort by the HHS and NIH to identify new technologies that can “further reduce reliance on outdated research models,” the statement reads. “Under President Trump’s leadership, taxpayer-funded research must reflect the best science of today and the values of the American people,” Bhattacharya said.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a press release that use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in research will be replaced with “gold-standard science.” This shift aims to move towards research models that are “better suited to today’s evolving scientific landscape,” such as organoids and tissue chips, the release added.
These alternatives can “drive discovery while reducing ethical concerns,” the NIH press release reads.
While these replacements are viable options, Chuck Toth, director of the Brown University Multidisciplinary Teaching Laboratories and adjunct professor of biology, explained that “they cannot fully replicate human tissue so each have their drawbacks.”
“I use human cerebral organoids in my class — while they are a good model as an option, they do not possess all of the cell types or interactions seen in brain tissue itself,” he wrote.
As work with human tissue must already be approved by a biosafety committee and an institutional review board, Toth said that protocols are already in place to address the issue of ethics.
“This new policy isn’t about advancing science with new technologies as described by the NIH,” Toth wrote, adding that the policy will “limit advances in biomedical science” and slow down research revolving human development.
According to the NIH press release, this policy update is a step toward “helping to ensure that America remains the global leader in biomedical innovation while reflecting the values of the people it serves.”
The new policy also “advances the Trump Administration’s priorities to uphold the sanctity of human life and modernize biomedical science,” according to a HHS press release.
Dahlia Pahlavi ’27, president of the Women’s Health Advocacy Group, wrote that “barring the responsible, non-wasteful usage of available human tissue will only hinder the development of progress in treating and curing disease and illness.”
“The political debate about elective termination of pregnancy is a separate issue from allowing the responsible and ethical usage of that tissue,” she said, adding that human tissue is used in “many contexts,” including medical education and transplantations.
The HHS did not directly respond to The Herald’s request for comment on the new policy’s impact on future research and the administration’s reasoning behind ending the use of fetal human tissue.
Alice Xie is a section editor for Science and Research from Los Angeles, California. She studies Applied Mathematics and Biology, and enjoys reading gut wrenching literature in her free time.
