Stanford University Scientists Caught Using Aborted Babies’ Fingers in Tax-Funded Experiments

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Apr 21, 2021   |   2:40PM   |   Washington, DC

A federal complaint filed against Stanford University on Tuesday includes disturbing details about how scientists are using aborted babies’ fingers in taxpayer-funded experiments.

The complaint came from an animal rights group called the White Coat Waste Project, which aims to end taxpayer-funded experiments on animals, Fox News reports. It accused the university of failing to disclose the funding that it received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the research.

“When NIH-funded white coats implant fingers and femurs from aborted human fetuses into young mice and keep their spending a secret, we call that a gross, gross misuse of taxpayer dollars,” the nonprofit said on its website.

According to the complaint, Stanford University violated the Stevens Amendment, a federal law that requires NIH grant recipients to disclose the “the percentage and dollar amount of the total costs of the program or project funded with federal money” in press releases and other publications.

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The NIH money was used to conduct experiments on regenerating human cartilage in joints and identifying the human skeletal stem cell. Press releases from the university in 2018 and 2020 describe how Stanford scientists implanted human tissue from aborted babies into mice for these experiments.

According to researchers’ report on the experiments, they “obtained” 14 “human fetal samples” from StemExpress, a California company that faced a U.S. Congressional investigation for allegedly selling aborted baby body parts.

“Samples ranged in age from 10 to 20 weeks of gestation with no restrictions on race or gender. Fetal sample procurement and handling was in accordance with the guidelines set by the Institutional Review Board,” the report states.

According to research by the White Coat Waste Project, “the NIH grants listed as funding sources on both papers have received over $60 million” in taxpayer funds.

A university spokesperson defended their press releases in a statement to Fox News, saying, “Stanford Medicine does not cite grant funding amounts in any press releases unless the news is about the grant itself.”

Meanwhile, pro-life leaders and lawmakers responded to the news by calling for better transparency.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, slammed the experiments as “unethical” and urged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to investigate.

“Taxpayers in Iowa, and across the nation, have a right to know exactly how their hard-earned dollars are being spent, and that’s exactly why I’ve asked the HHS Inspector General to investigate these transparency violations, by Stanford and many others, and why I’ve put forward the COST Act to guarantee that hardworking Americans have easy access to see how the federal government is spending their money,” Ernst said.

Democrats for Life president Terrisa Bukovinac said people on both sides of the political aisle agree that their tax dollars should not be funding unethical experiments.

“Federal agencies shouldn’t be wasting millions of our taxpayer dollars for grotesque, violent and unnecessary human fetal tissue experiments on animals,” she said. “This is an issue where pro-lifers and animal-lovers in both political parties can – and must – be united.”

Last week, President Joe Biden’s administration reversed actions by President Donald Trump to stop taxpayer funding to research using aborted baby body parts. It also disbanded an ethical advisory board that the Trump administration created to review research funding requests to ensure tax dollars were not being used to fund unethical research.