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1992.05.19 :  Human Fetal Tissue Bank

U N I T E D    S T A T E S    D E P A R T M E N T    O F
      H E A L T H    A N D    H U M A N    S E R V I C E S
                         N E W S

Contact: Bill Grigg, PHS (202) 245-6867
May 19, 1992

     Under a presidential directive announced today, the U.S.
Public Health Service and its component National Institutes of
Health will establish a human fetal tissue bank as a source of
tissue for experimental implants aimed at altering the course of
Parkinson's, diabetes and certain inherited disorders.

     HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., said the fetal tissue
bank will provide tissue from spontaneous abortions
(miscarriages) and ectopic pregnancies (in which a non-viable
fetus develops outside the uterus and is a deadly threat to the
mother).  Secretary Sullivan said, "The bank will guarantee that
tissue will be available to the research community without
conflicting with  important ethical concerns.  The bank will
ensure that we will aggressively explore every research area."

     Some 60 fetal tissue transplants have been performed during
the past 30 years in the United States in attempts to modify
disease conditions.  The U.S. government, since 1988, has had a
continuing moratorium on using tax dollars for human transplant
research using fetal tissue from induced abortions but not from
ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages.  The moratorium on federal
support for tissue transplantation from induced abortion is based
on a concern about encouraging abortions but it anticipated that
research using alternate sources of fetal tissues would continue. 
Privately
supported research has not been affected by the moratorium.
                                                                  
        James Mason, M.D., who is HHS assistant secretary for
health and head of the Public Health Service, said, "This new
fetal tissue bank should eliminate a medico-ethical tangle and
make human fetal tissue from non-controversial sources more
available for studies we all want done.  The reason for the
moratorium was our concern not to provide a woman with an
incentive to have an abortion.  A woman who is ambivalent about
abortion might be more likely to choose having an abortion if she
believed that the fetal matter might be used directly to benefit
the health of another human being."
 
    NIH, one of eight Public Health Service agencies in HHS,
estimates that the establishment of the bank, which will be
composed of a network of centers around the country, could
retrieve for 


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experimental transplant about 2,000 tissue specimens each year,
and will encourage the development of permanent cell lines
requiring no additional tissue.

     A few privately funded, experimental transplants are being
carried out for Parkinson's and diabetes but the results have
been inconclusive to date.  The need for the tissue may be
temporary as cell lines may eventually fill the need.  Also, Dr.
Mason said, "Within a decade it is expected that advances in
molecular medicine will provide new approaches for the treatment
of the diseases presently targeted for transplantation research."
     In fiscal year 1993, under the president's budget, NIH will
spend about $600 million on new research methods for Parkinson's
disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's.

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