Abortion bill stirs medical research debate
MADISON – One of the central issues in an ongoing heated legislative debate is whether modern medical research has moved beyond the need for using tissue from new abortions.
A Republican-backed bill would ban Wisconsin researchers from using the tissue over the objections of prominent health organizations, biomedical industry advocates and college officials, including the dean of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s medical school.
Opponents say such a ban would slow, weaken or shutdown critical research of cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Down syndrome and other serious health conditions affecting thousands of families across the globe.
Bill author Rep. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, and other supporters say modern science offers plenty of alternatives to the tissue, such as cells taken from decades-old abortions that can be repeatedly copied or cells that can now be reprogrammed.
“The continuing use of aborted fetal tissue isn’t really an advantage to medical research,” Jacque said. “Ethically derived alternatives are dominating the field. This is becoming antiquated science.”
For an example of this debate playing out in real life, look no further than a study underway at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, the study aims to understand a herpesvirus that causes Roseola in infants and toddlers. Symptoms of Roseola include a high fever and pinkish-red skin rash.
The grant authorizes Dr. Sarah Hudson to use two fetal organs, a thymus and liver, to simulate a human’s immune system in mice. This approach would allow Hudson to perform tests on mice that react to the virus more like a child would.
However, college officials say Hudson has decided to use blood taken from an umbilical cord for her study instead.
That decision underscores the viewpoints of both supporters and opponents of Jacque’s bill. While it demonstrates that some research may continue without using fetal tissue, college officials say the results won’t be as valuable.
“(The) alternate cord blood model only creates a simplistic and incomplete version of the human immune system,” said Dr. John Raymond, president and CEO of the Medical College of Wisconsin. “Thus, the alternate model is not as powerful or relevant for understanding how the virus infects infants.”
Raymond said Hudson decided to use umbilical cord blood because there is a waiting list for fetal tissue, and waiting too long can be extremely expensive.
DEBATE HEATS UP
Jacque’s bill is backed by more than 50 Republican legislators and conservative groups such as Wisconsin Family Action and Pro-Life Wisconsin. Much of the vocal support has focused on the ethical grounds of using fetal tissue rather than its scientific merits.
Jacque has twice proposed similar bans, but the issue gained steam this summer in the wake of undercover videos that appear to show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of tissue from abortions. Selling the tissue is illegal under federal law. Planned Parenthood officials have called the videos misleading and deny profiting from the tissue.
UW-Madison and Medical College of Wisconsin officials say they receive fetal tissue from one of four federally regulated facilities and nothing directly from Planned Parenthood clinics. Still, Jacque argues his bill would eliminate any chance of illegally obtained tissue falling into the hands of Wisconsin researchers.
One of those researchers at UW-Madison is Dr. Anita Bhattacharyya. She is using fetal tissue to study Down syndrome in children and hopes her work may also advance the medical community’s understanding of Alzheimer’s. People with Down syndrome are at greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s earlier in life.
At her lab Friday, Bhattacharyya explained that her research is reprogramming skin cells from people with Down syndrome into immature brain cells, and then closely monitoring those cells as they age. The basic idea is to better understand brain development that would normally happen in the womb.
THE NUMBERS
How much research involving fetal tissue is being done nationwide or would be at risk in Wisconsin under Jacque’s bill is unclear. One of 244 categories of study funded by the NIH is called “human fetal tissue,” but researchers say tracking grants under this category may not be a meaningful benchmark.
Hudson’s herpesvirus study, for example, falls under the NIH’s category because her grant proposal included a request for fetal tissue authorization. That she ultimately decided not to use the tissue didn’t exclude her grant from the list.
The NIH categorized about $76 million in research as involving human fetal tissue in 2014, or about .2 percent of its total research budget of $27.8 billion. Since 2008, the NIH has categorized about $4.7 million in grants at UW-Madison and $1.9 million in grants at the Medical College of Wisconsin as involving human fetal tissue.
If those figures were accurate, it would indicate that little research at either school typically involves fetal tissue. In 2014 alone, UW-Madison researchers received about $258 million in NIH grants, according to public disclosures on the federal agency’s website.
Still, college officials and biomedical industry advocates say a ban could have wider implications on the economy by deterring top scientists from working in Wisconsin or attending its schools.
“It’s a snowball effect. It that talent leaves, our companies leave,” warned Lisa Johnson, head of BioForward, a group that lobbies on behalf of Wisconsin’s bioscience industries.
Meanwhile, Jacque said a ban could push researchers into new areas.
“I will trust that research will find a way because they already have. We have shown the ability to move beyond,” he said. “If aborted fetal tissue is available, they don’t feel that they need to try an alternative. They’re going with the most convenient, the laziest route.”
Debate over the bill is expected to ramp up again next month. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a supporter, says it will come before his full chamber this fall. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Republicans in his caucus haven’t yet discussed.
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