The Trump administration has thrown into doubt a multimillion-dollar research contract to test new treatments for HIV that relies on fetal tissue — work targeted by antiabortion lawmakers and social conservatives aligned with the president.
The turmoil over the National Institutes of Health contract with the University of California at San Francisco is part of a building battle between conservatives opposed to research using fetal tissue and scientists who say the material is vital to developing new therapies for diseases such as AIDS and Parkinson’s.
The researcher who runs the UCSF laboratory was given a 90-day extension on the contract, rather than another year’s $2 million installment, as had been routine. A few days earlier, she had been told the money would be cut off immediately, according to a virologist familiar with the events.
View the complete December 5 article by Amy Goldstein on The Washington Post website here.