The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded at least $2.7 million to a University of Pittsburgh program that sought to create a “tissue hub” sourced from aborted fetuses ranging from six to 42 weeks’ gestation. Forty-two weeks equates to more than 10 months of pregnancy.
Details about the program emerged after conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch and the Center for Medical Progress obtained 252 pages of documents as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought against the HHS.
In its 2015 grant application to the HHS, the University of Pittsburgh explained that it had been “collecting fetal tissue for over 10 years… includ[ing] liver, heart, gonads, legs, brain, genitourinary tissues including kidneys, ureters and bladders.”
The institution requested government funds in order to help “develop a pipeline to the acquisition, quality control and distribution of human genitourinary [urinary and genital organs and functions] samples” taken from aborted fetuses. The project aimed to generate an “ongoing resource” that can be used to distribute “fresh” human samples from “various stages (six-42 weeks).” Commenting on its operational abilities in 2015, the university said that it had “disbursed over 300 fresh samples collected from 77 cases. The collections can be significantly ramped up as material could have been accrued from as many as 725 cases last year.”
Its plan to “harvest and distribute quality tissue and cells” also included racial quotas: The university’s application said that it wanted 50% of its aborted “subjects” to be minority fetuses. However, as the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) noted, Allegheny County, the region from which the university sources fetuses for harvesting, is 80% white and only 13% black.
The university argued that it was an ideal candidate to provide human tissue to US government researchers because the institution “takes steps” to “ensure the highest quality biological specimens.” Specifically, the grant application said that warm ischemic time – the amount of time an organ or body part remains at room temperature after its blood supply has been reduced or cut, before being cooled or reconnected to a blood supply – is “kept at a minimum.” Elsewhere in the documents, the university explained that it uses “labor induction” as a “procedure that will be used to obtain the tissue.”
In a press release discussing the tranche of documents, the CMP noted that “if the fetus’ heartbeat and blood circulation continue in a labor induction abortion for harvesting organs, it means the fetus is being delivered while still alive and the cause of death is the removal of the organs.”
Both the university and the National Institutes of Health, which is part of the HHS, have previously claimed that they follow all relevant laws regarding fetal-tissue research.
The new revelations led some to argue that claims about ethically questionable medical research can no longer be dismissed as baseless conspiracy theories.
Conservative pundit Jack Posobiec pointed to a 2019 Newsweek article castigating conspiracy guru Alex Jones for insisting that medical researchers are “keeping babies alive and taking their organs.” The outlet dismissed Jones’ allegation as “inaccurate information that has been circulating among conservatives.”
Others seemed to agree that Jones had been vindicated.
Jones was permanently kicked off Twitter, as well as all other major social media platforms, in 2018, allegedly for “abusive behavior.” Although widely dismissed by mainstream media as a quack, Jones’ supporters insist that many of his zany theories have since been shown to be true. A Twitter account called “Alex Jones was right” currently has more than 66,000 followers.
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