via CNSNews:
The National Institutes of Health will not decide whether to continue its long-term multimillion-dollar contract with the University of California, San Francisco to make “humanized mice” with organs taken from aborted babies until after it has completed its ongoing audit of all HHS-funded fetal tissue acquisitions and a comprehensive review of HHS-funded fetal tissue research.
In the meantime, NIH has given UCSF a 90-day extension on the contract.
The contract extension with UCSF was signed Dec. 4, 2018 and runs through March 5, 2019, according to the Federal Procurement Data System. It will pay the university $521,082.
“The contract remains on the 90-day extension to ensure continuity of service until the audit is completed and a final decision can be made about the contract,” the NIH said in a written statement provided in response to questions submitted by CNSNews.com.
“During the 90-day extension,” the NIH said, “the NIH Contracting Officer Representative can instruct UCSF to produce new mouse cohorts, obtain or engraft new fetal tissue, and/or start new in vitro or humanized mouse studies that are not already planned, if deemed scientifically necessary.”
CNSNews.com asked UCSF this week if it had produced any humanized mice since the extension was granted or whether it would be producing any humanized mice during the contract’s extension period. UCSF responded: “We are not going to have any further comment.”
Audit of All Acquisitions Involving Fetal Tissue
On Sept. 24, 2018, HHS announced it was cancelling a different contract that the Food and Drug Administration had with Advanced Bioscience Resources to acquire human fetal tissue. At the same time, HHS announced it was in the process of conducting an audit of all HHS-funded acquisitions of fetal tissue as well as a review of all HHS-funded research involving fetal tissue. This HHS announcement came after CNSNews.com reported on Aug. 7, 2018 that the FDA on July 25, 2018 had signed the contract with ABR to acquire human fetal tissue to transplant into mice.
“After a recent review of a contract between Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. and the Food and Drug Administration to provide human fetal tissue to develop testing protocols, HHS was not sufficiently assured that the contract included the appropriate protections applicable to fetal tissue research or met all other procurement requirements,” HHS said in the statement issued Sept. 24….
h/t McShillin