“The University of Pittsburgh commissioned an independent, third-party firm to review and assess their fetal tissue research processes and practices,” the letter, signed by NIH Acting Principal Deputy Director Tara Schwetz, continued. “This assessment reviewed all of the University of Pittsburgh’s activities related to procurement, disbursement, and use of fetal tissue to determine if they were fully compliant with all applicable laws.”
Senate Pro-Life Caucus Chair Steve Daines, R-Mont., derided NIH’s response as “extremely concerning and completely unacceptable” and the investigative findings by the law firm Pitt commissioned as “woefully inadequate.”
“Rather than conducting its own investigation, the Biden administration has chosen to rely on a woefully inadequate outside report paid for by Pitt,” he told me. “This report fails to address our concerns that Pitt’s research may have involved fetal tissue harvested from babies who were born alive or where the abortion methods were altered. This type of research is not only unethical and completely repulsive, but contrary to federal law. We need answers.”
Daines was referring to multiple physicians’ claims that Pitt’s statements “point to the possibility” that organs were “extracted from live fetuses.” That was based on statements the university made about minimizing ischemia time, which refers to “the time after the tissue collection procedure and before cooling for storage and transport.”
The university’s application to NIH also prompted lawmakers to question whether the university had violated fetal tissue trafficking laws as part of its federally funded “GUDMAP” research program. In applying for NIH funds, Pitt said it sought to “develop a pipeline to the acquisition, quality control and distribution of human genitourinary [urinary and genital organs and functions] samples obtained throughout development (6-42 weeks gestation).”
So far, the university has denied any wrongdoing and claimed it played no role in medical procedures. It’s unclear, however, why the university made comments about ischemia time and obtaining quality tissue.
Instead, Pitt has acknowledged that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), which it says is a separate entity, supplies tissue for its research. It also houses several locations for the university’s tissue bank and has encountered a variety of questions surrounding potential conflicts of interest with the university.
