Fetal Tissue Research Using Aborted Babies Vigorously Opposed in Nebraska

By Dave Andrusko

The ongoing ferocious debate over the use of brain tissue harvested from aborted babies grew even more intense when an Omaha, Nebraska, newspaper reported that the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) was not only using fetal tissue in experiments but obtaining it from the state's most notorious abortionist. There also is evidence the University of Nebraska's Board of Regents was given only limited and incomplete information about the federal grant which pays for the experimentation.

In a front-page story printed three days after Thanksgiving, the Omaha World-Herald revealed that abortionist LeRoy Carhart had been providing fetal tissue obtained from his Bellevue-based abortion clinic to UNMC for two years. UNMC officials said that fetal brain tissue was "aimed at a better understanding of Alzheimer's disease," according to the Omaha World-Herald.

For now UNMC says it is researching whether such tissue can help a patient with Alz-heimer's. NRL News has printed any number of articles demonstrating that when actually tried such transplants have been abysmal failures and that there are far more promising alternatives. [See NRL News, p. 8.]

In defending the use of fetal tissue extracted from the bodies of aborted babies, Dr. William O. Berndt, vice chancellor of UNMC, told the World-Herald, "This is important stuff" and "The history of science tells us the important stuff always has been controversial."

"Controversial," however, is putting it mildly. Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns sent a letter to UNMC, asking it to stop using brain tissue taken from aborted babies. In an interview with the World- Herald, Johanns said the thought of fetal tissue being used for research disturbed him and, he believed, a majority of Nebraskans as well.

In his letter to Dr. L. Dennis Smith, president of the Univer- sity of Nebraska, Johanns reiterated that the research "is disturbing and causes me grave concern."

State Sen. Jim Jensen said he was "shocked" by the news. Jensen chairs the Health and Human Services Committee, which oversees the state's hospitals and clinics.

Doug Kristensen, the speaker of Nebraska's unicameral legislature, told the World- Herald that he thought the decision to use tissue taken from aborted babies "is very poor political judgment and obviously sparks a debate that will question all sorts of other things they do." He added that lawmakers may threaten to cut the university's funding if it refuses to stop.

UNMC officials insist Carhart is not paid for the tissue. But as several recent articles in NRL News explain, this can be a ruse. [See October and November 1999 issues.]

But, said Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, even if Carhart is not paid for the tissue, there are other proven benefits from his association with UNMC.

In 1997 Carhart was appointed to an unpaid, volunteer faculty post in the Department of Pathology and Microbiology. (Tom O 'Connor, a spokesman for UNMC, told the World-Herald that Carhart "has developed a method of isolating populations of brains cells that are used in the research.")

"He had this position listed on his web page," Schmit-Albin told NRL News. "The fact that he can say that he is a staff member at UNMC gives him an aura of respectability."

When local pro-lifers noticed this on his web page, "they were told by UNMC that he was on staff in Pathology," she said. No other information was provided.

"We wondered at the time what Carhart - - notorious for his challenge to our ban on partial-birth abortion - - would be doing on the staff of our state's leading medical center," Schmit- Albin said. "Where our imagination did not want to go, news reports have proven to be the case."

She also questioned if Carhart has been granted hospital admitting privileges at UNMC. When Carhart challenged Nebraska's law banning partial-birth abortions in 1997, he had no such privileges in any hospital in the Omaha area.

The studies using tissue taken from aborted babies were supported by about $400,000 in federal funds received in both 1997 and 1998. They were part of a much larger award given by the National Institutes of Health to the director of the Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Specific information about the controversial grant was not given to regents, but instead included in a "long quarterly list provided for information only," according to published accounts.

This was criticized even by Chuck Hassebrook, a regent who said he had no problem with the research. "How many regents do you think carefully study all that?" he told the World-Herald. "These are not the sort of things you go over with a fine-tooth comb."

The University of Nebraska central administration offices provided the World Herald with copies of summaries of four research projects which, they said, involved fetal brain cells. Only one of the four even mentions fetal cells at all and none explicitly mention "human fetal cells."

Even more revealing was that this qualified notification was not given apparently until after the funding had started.

Schmit-Albin told NRL News that pro-lifers are busy educating elected officials and media personnel to what is taking place at UNMC and are circulating a petition to present to the board of regents.