New research: harvest organs from aborted fetuses to implant in animals

UPDATE NOTE: This blog was posted before The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released videos showing Planned Parenthood’s operation of harvesting aborted baby parts. As I note in this post, Stem Express, which procured fetal parts from Planned Parenthood is listed as a source for these babies implanted into animals. The Washington Examiner writes of Gu, that, through his start-up research company, Ganogen, Gu has obtained fetal organs from StemExpress, which is being investigated by the House of Representatives Select Investigative Panel on Infants’ Lives. It is noteworthy that Gu and Stem Express owner Cate Dyer have authored a response together to the Select Panel investigating the use of fetal tissue.

It is now feasible to remove a kidney from an aborted human fetus and implant the organ into a rat, where the kidney can grow to a larger size. That was a statement written in an article published by The Genetic Literacy Project.

It’s possible that further work could find a way to grow kidneys large enough that they could be transplanted into a person, the researchers said, although much more research is needed to determine whether this could be done, the article states.

The new findings are published in the American Journal of Transplantation.

The research, co-authored by Eugene Gu (Guhe) founder and CEO of Ganogen, Inc., a biotech company in Redwood City, California, raises a number of ethical questions, including whether it is acceptable to use human fetal organs in research, or to transplant human organs into animals. If the research moves forward, it must be determined that the organs were obtained with proper consent, and that the research was conducted with adequate oversight, experts told CBS News.

On their website, Ganogen, Inc., says that they have found a way to successfully transplant human fetal kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, and other organs into animal hosts using advanced microsurgery.

“We also use our patented medical device, the arterial flow regulator, to make the fetal organ compatible for transplantation into the adult animal host.”

“After transplantation, the fetal organ continues to grow and mature. It even demonstrates function, and in the case of the kidney, can keep the host animal alive all on its own,” they explain.

According to CBS, Gu and his colleagues obtained human fetal kidneys from Stem Express, a Placerville, California-based company that supplies researchers with tissue from deceased adults and fetuses.

On their website, Stem Express writes that their “human tissue products range from fetal to adult and healthy to diseased, and we also collect bone marrow and leukapheresis for isolation.”

They go on to say that, “Working with hospitals and clinics across the United States, all human tissue and blood procurement is performed in accordance with IRB-approved protocols and consents. Protecting the privacy of our researchers and donors is always the highest priority at StemExpress.”

The company, which operates in more than 30 procurement sites across the United States and delivers product to hundreds of researchers worldwide has an online market of fetal cells that be purchased:

According to Gu, people who donated the fetal tissues gave consent for the kidneys to be used in research.

The researchers transplanted the fetal kidneys into adult rats that lacked an immune system (so as to avoid tissue rejection), and connected the animals’ blood vessels to the organs using a challenging procedure that involved tiny stitches, about three to four times smaller than the width of a human hair.

“We did this study in rats as proof-of-concept to show that human fetal organs can indeed survive in an animal host, can function to keep the animal alive, and can grow larger over time,” Gu told Medical Daily. The rats survived roughly four months after the transplant, and one even lived for 10 months.

Cate Dyer, CEO and founder of Stem Express, claimed that all “donors”, that is the pregnant women seeking the abortion and not the unborn child whose kidney’s were taken, are, “properly consented through an Institutional Review Board (IRB) consent, and donors are made aware of the potential use of any sample that we collect.”

The IRB defines a Fetus as, “the product of conception from the time of implantation until delivery. If the delivered or expelled fetus is viable, it is designated an infant. (Hereafter, the term “fetus” will refer to a living fetus unless otherwise specified.) The term “fetus” generally refers to later phases of development; the term “embryo” is usually used for earlier phases of development.”

Research involving the human fetus raises special concerns for IRB reviewers, the review boards states on the HHS website, “The fetus has a unique and inextricable relationship to the mother. It cannot consent to be a research subject. These circumstances have aroused lengthy public debate on the ethics of fetal research, and led to special federal regulations that guide IRB deliberations about fetal research. The fetus may also be an indirect subject of research when women who may be pregnant participate. Research involving pregnant women is also regulated.”

Under the section: CONSIDERATIONS, the IRB address abortion, “If abortion is involved, the investigators may have no part in either the decision to abort or decisions about the timing or the method to be used; no change in the abortion procedure that would present more than minimal risk to the fetus or its mother can be introduced for research purposes. No monetary or other inducements (e.g., free care) may be offered to a woman to induce her to terminate her pregnancy for research purposes,“ IRB states.

In another section the IRB addresses research on non-viable fetuses, “A fetus is judged nonviable if it cannot possibly survive to the point of sustaining life independently, even with the support of available medical therapy, and will therefore die. Research involving a nonviable fetus that would either artificially maintain vital functions or hasten their failure is forbidden. Ethical considerations call upon investigators to maintain the dignity of this dying human subject and to avoid unseemly intrusions in the process of dying for research purposes.”

However, in detailing how to obtain aborted fetal tissue, the IRB says the following should be followed:

The decision to terminate a pregnancy and procedures of abortion should be kept independent from the retrieval and use of fetal tissue.
The timing and method of abortion should not be influenced by the potential uses of fetal tissue for transplantation or medical research.
Payments and other forms of remuneration and compensation associated with the procurement of fetal tissue should be prohibited, except payment for reasonable expenses occasioned by the actual retrieval, storage, preparation, and transportation of the tissues.

Addressing the possibility of research on a live fetus where the mother has already decided to have an abortion, The IRB says that, “The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects wrestled with this problem and concluded that there is no difference between the moral status of a fetus destined for abortion and that of a fetus to be carried to term. Therefore, only those research procedures that would be acceptable for a fetus going to term may be performed in anticipation of abortion.”

“In all research in which human fetuses are the subjects of research, the consent of the mother on behalf of the fetus is required. As a general rule, the consent of the father on behalf of the fetus is also required before a fetus may be enrolled in research. Exceptions to the requirement that the father provide consent are permitted if: (1) the father’s identity or whereabouts cannot reasonably be ascertained; (2) the father is not reasonably available; or (3) the pregnancy resulted from rape,” IRB states.

In addition to kidneys, the researchers have also transplanted human fetal hearts into rats, Gu told CBS, which details the process.

Ultimately, the researchers plan to transplant the kidneys into larger animals, such as pigs, where the organs could grow large enough to be transplanted back into people, Gu said.

Hank Greely, an ethical and legal expert on biomedical science at Stanford Law School outlined his concerns, “The key issues are the existence of the pregnant woman’s consent and the total separation of the decision to abort from the decision to let the fetal remains be used in research,” Greely told Live Science.

In other words, a woman must have already decided to have an abortion before she can be asked whether she is willing to donate the fetus for research.

“We feel that our research is more palatable than all the other researchers who use taxpayer money to fund their research involving aborted human fetal tissues, which is the vast majority of major biomedical research labs,” Gu said to Medical Daily.

Addressing his use of harvested organs from aborted fetuses, Gu says he and his colleagues “do not want to encourage abortions in any way, shape, or form. … If the organs are available, it is better to use them to save somebody’s life rather than throw them into the trash bin.”

Undoubtedly, writes Medical Daily, Gu’s argument is probably echoed in many research labs around the world. That said, most people would still find the details of his work unsavory… unless of course they needed a kidney, they say.

But, they fail to mention, religious, pro-life people, and many others find the use of aborted fetal tissue or organs for research morally objectionable.

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Below InfoWars discusses harvesting aborted baby body parts and printing organs

SECOND UPDATE: CMP’s 5th video transcript implies Planned Parenthood is using the aborted babies for “mice” studies and “Humanized mice”.

The Center for Medical Progress released a 5th video showing the nation’s largest Planned Parenthood abortion facility offering intact fetal cadavers which they refer to as “specimens.”

Center for Medical Progress, posing as buyers for a Biotech company sat with the Director of Research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Melissa Farrell, at the abortion-clinic headquarters of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston, Texas.

Read more here: Planned Parenthood uses aborted baby parts for humanized mice research