Washington (AFP)
Donald Trump's government announced on Wednesday that it was putting an end to all medical research in federal centers on tissues taken from aborted fetuses, gaining a major claim from anti-abortion activists in the United States.
The Department of Health announced in a statement that no more researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could work on this type of tissue.
"Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the top priorities of President Trump's administration," the ministry said.
In addition, the administration has indicated that it will not renew the $ 2 million annual public funding contract with the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) for research on fetal tissues. These are used to develop new treatments for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
"Today's actions put an end to a 30-year partnership with the NIH to use specially designed models that can only be developed through the use of fetal tissue to find a cure for HIV," he said. a statement to vitriol the chancellor of the university.
The university center uses mice in which researchers implant fetal cells to create a human-like immune system and test potential antibodies against the virus.
The university leader denounced an "abrupt decision", "politically motivated, short-termist and not based on scientific facts".
Fetal tissues are also used for research against Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injuries and ophthalmic diseases, he said.
- Satisfaction on the right -
The Republican administration launched an audit on this topic in September 2018 and since then, the contract with the university was on the hot seat, subject to extensions of 90 days. Finally the current extension, which ran until Wednesday, was not renewed, a decision apparently without notice.
Publicly funded research projects in other universities or research centers will not be systematically excluded in the future, but will now be subject to a new procedure involving an advisory ethics committee.
The decision is not a legal ban: private research can continue, as long as it is not co-financed by public funds.
Opponents of the right to abortion welcomed the change in policy.
"Most Americans do not want their taxes to create a market for aborted baby parts that are then implanted into mice and used for experimentation," said the Walk for Life organization.
"The federal state can not be complicit in these horrible circuits of buying fetal tissue from aborted babies," said Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a former White House candidate.
But for many scientists, fetal tissue is essential for advanced research and has already led to many advances, including polio, rubella and rabies vaccines.
Stopping public funding "will destroy crucial research, slow down treatment for cancer, AIDS, dementia.By prohibiting fetal tissue is forbidding hope for millions of people suffering from disabling diseases", Lawrence Gostin, a professor of health law at Georgetown University in Washington, said on Twitter.
About 1.1 million people are living with HIV in the United States, where the annual number of infections has stagnated since 2013 at about 39,000 cases. No vaccine has yet been found, even though current treatments manage to make the viral load undetectable.
The Trump government's decision comes after the vote in several conservative states on highly restrictive abortion laws (abortion). The goal is to bring this sensitive issue back to the Supreme Court, which had legalized abortion in 1973, hoping for a turnaround of the Court's judges where the Conservatives now have a majority.
Donald Trump, a declared opponent of abortion, also wants to mobilize the conservative election base, opposed to abortion, while he will seek a second term in November 2020.
? 2019 AFP