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Universities using aborted fetuses
"Even if abortion is deeply controversial, that is not automatically a sufficient reason to rule out public funds for fetal remains experimentation, provided there is proper consent." ~ Robert Audi

The University of North Carolina is just one in a growing list of public universities exploring new, controversial boundaries within the medical field, which could cause some taxpayers to question how their tax money is being used. 

Here in North Carolina, at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the possibility of controversy surrounding aborted fetus-tissue research has limited the information made available to the public. There is reportedly a program to develop an artificial liver that is using, in part, fetal-tissue.

However, researchers declined to be interviewed because they were concerned about possible controversy.

But not all schools have been able to maintain anonymity. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the brain cells of aborted fetuses being used in the study of Alzheimer's disease by researchers was reported in a local newspaper.

The studies were federally funded to use fetal tissue. In 1993, President Clinton ended the national ban on research using fetal tissue. The studies were supported by grants of more than $1 million per year from the National Institutes of Health. 

"The research uses questionable medical ethics," said Richard Duncan, an NU law professor. 

"Nebraska is traditionally anti-abortion, so the University of Nebraska's use of taxpayers' money to fund this research is inconsiderate," Duncan said. 

"Even though the use of the fetus' tissue could benefit others medically, it is unwise for any medical school to conduct this research, especially when it is federally funded," Duncan continued. 

Robert Audi, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor of philosophy, said federal funds for research on fetuses shouldn't be ruled out just because abortion is involved. 

"I would say even if abortion is deeply controversial, that is not automatically a sufficient reason to rule out public funds for fetal remains experimentation, provided there is proper consent," Audi said. 

Robert R. Blank, chairman of Metro Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, said it was "abhorrent and repulsive" that the Medical Center would use tax dollars for experiments using aborted babies. 

Medical Center Vice Chancellor Dr. William O. Berndt told the World-Herald the research has been underway for several years. 

Berndt said he knows fetal-tissue research is controversial, but it could improve the lives of many people. History has shown important scientific work has always been controversial, Berndt said. 

"We are trying to understand the fundamental biology of human brain cells," Berndt said in the World-Herald story. 

The research could help determine what goes wrong in the brain in patients with disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. It may lead to new treatments. 

Berndt declined to reveal the identity of the researchers at the Medical Center because of concerns about adverse public reaction. 

Before the fetuses are used for research, women must agree to participate and sign a release form. 

Audi said the Med Center's research raised ethical questions including whether people can give consent for experimental use of any human body that is not their own. 

Audi said that reasoning depends on whether a fetus is considered a human body. He also questioned the father's consent rights. 

"I would say that it is reasonable to think that a woman may give appropriate consent if the body is that of a fetus she has carried and is genetically hers." 

The Medical Center does not perform elective abortions themselves, Berndt said.

However, in the wake of a strong public backlash, university and Medical Center officials announced that whenever possible fetal cells would be obtained from alternative sources, such as spontaneous abortions like miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.

They also announced the formation of an outside advisory committee and changes in the review of such research.

From now on, reviews will be done by the full institutional review board that looks at research involving humans. The board includes community representatives as well as doctors, faculty members and ethicists.

Three NU Medical Center administrators who make up the executive committee of the review board had done the reviews in the past.

The National Institutes of Health awarded 288 grants during 1998 and 1999 for research involving human fetal tissue, said Anne Thomas, director of communications for the institutes.

Thomas said she did not know the total number of institutions involved. Some received more than one grant.

Dr. Belinda Seto, a deputy director at the National Institutes of Health, said the list was based on a wide variety of research that uses fetal cells from various sources. The sources include umbilical-cord blood, placentas, elective abortions and spontaneous abortions.

Researchers are required to obtain approval through federal and local review procedures, one official said.

At Yale University, studies involving human fetal tissue "get more than a full review," said Dr. Robert Levine, a professor of medicine and editor of the institutional review board journal.

"We usually table a discussion, have a subcommittee study the proposed research and report back," he said. "We are reluctant to go too fast and overlook anything."

The most interesting fetal tissue research at Yale involves transplanting fetal brain tissue into patients with Parkinson's disease, Levine said. The research, involving tissue that comes from aborted fetuses, was started several years ago and is supported by private funding.

"There was controversy within the university as to whether we should being do this," he said. "But there was very little controversy outside the university."

At Loyola University in Chicago, researchers have "grown" blood cells from umbilical cords in the laboratory. They were used for bone-marrow transplants in adults at high risk from leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma for whom no suitable marrow donor could be found.

The university has put out press releases about the work, which has gone through federal and institutional reviews.

In 1988, at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, researchers performed a fetal cell implant on a Parkinson's patient. That work continues.

Elective abortions provide the embryonic cells that are implanted in hopes of replacing the loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brains of Parkinson's patients, said Sarah Ellis, a university spokeswoman.

"It has not particularly been a controversial sort of research," she said.

She said she believes the university also relied on the work of a federal commission that looked at fetal tissue issues in the late 1980s. However, both President Reagan and Bush had banned federal fetal-tissue research.

And although Northwestern University was on the National Institutes of Health grant list, spokeswoman Elizabeth Crown said, "To the best of our knowledge, there is no human fetal tissue research going on at Northwestern."

The University of Iowa is among the institutions that are forthright about their carrying out research that uses tissue from elective and spontaneous abortions.

"We are very open about our research," said Dr. David Skorton, vice president for research. "There is no attempt to put anything over on anybody."

He said he doesn't know, however, how aware the public is of the research at the University of Iowa.

And finally, at the University of Minnesota, there have been "very few" studies in the past 12 years that have involved human fetal tissue, said Teri Charest, a university spokeswoman. Yet, some of the tissue used does come from abortions, she said.

The university also has 11 projects using umbilical cord blood, she said.

Charest said that she is not aware of any public reaction to the human fetal cell research but admits that she does not know how much awareness there is of it in the general public.