President Donald Trump’s nominee for the National Institutes of Health director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, told senators Wednesday during his confirmation hearing that he fully supports developing alternatives to the use of aborted fetal products in developing vaccines and therapeutics.
Bhattacharya, a physician and health economist from Stanford University, rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic for his sharp skepticism of mRNA vaccines. He was a top opponent of restrictive policies during the pandemic.
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During Wednesday’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a staunch opponent of abortion, asked Bhattacharya whether he would support the prohibition of using aborted fetal tissue for NIH-funded research, just as he asked now-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his confirmation hearing last month.
Bhattacharya said he is “absolutely committed” to avoiding the use of aborted fetal products in research, saying in particular that it is important to have vaccines that have no connection to abortion.
“In public health, we need to make sure the products of science are ethically acceptable to everybody,” Bhattacharya said. “And so having alternatives that are not ethically conflicted with fetal cell lines is not just an ethical issue, but it’s a public health issue.”
In late 2018, the Trump administration took steps to conduct ethics reviews on all Health and Human Services research projects involving fetal tissue from elective abortions and accelerated funding for finding alternatives to using aborted human tissue.
The connection between abortion and the development of vaccines was a source of resistance to the shots, especially among anti-abortion Catholics. At issue is pharmaceutical scientists’ use of cell lines that derive from organs originally taken from aborted fetuses.
For years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said it is wrong to use those cell lines for research, arguing that researchers put themselves in a position of moral responsibility for the original act of abortion.
COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna were not produced using cell lines derived from aborted fetal tissue. However, such cell lines are broadly used in research and were used in testing the vaccines, according to the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, and were used in the development of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Several other vaccines, including those available in the U.S. against rubella, chickenpox, and hepatitis A, have no alternatives that were not derived from fetal cell lines.
Bhattacharya referenced his experience speaking on Catholic radio stations during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and hearing the ethical objections of patients with strongly held anti-abortion positions.
“People would ask me whether the mRNA vaccines were made or developed with fetal cell lines,” Bhattacharya said, referencing the technology used for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. “I had to say yes.”
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Pope Francis encouraged vaccination against COVID-19. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the COVID-19 vaccines were morally permissible but has lobbied politicians for years to prohibit testing or drug development using cell lines derived from the tissue of aborted fetuses.
“We think about millions and millions of Americans who are understandably very concerned about the components, if you will, of many of these palliatives and vaccines, and we want them to be able to access this on the same basis as others,” Hawley said.