Recommendations to block fetal tissue funding break precedent by going over NIH’s head 

HHS Secretary Alex Azar will have the last word on an ethics board’s recommendation to restrict NIH funding for fetal tissue research in what is the latest example of the U.S. government setting scientific policy based on ideology. 

On Tuesday, the Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board published a report that recommended denying funding for 13 out of 14 research projects involving human fetal tissue that had passed NIH scrutiny. The report, which was drafted after the board’s largely closed-door meeting on July 31, does not contain details about the proposals beyond the board’s evaluations...