The ISSCR Responds to Ranking Member Cassidy’s Request for Information on NIH Reform
On 27 October 2023, the ISSCR submitted comments to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bill Cassidy’s Request for Information on reforming the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In response to a question about the ethical challenges confronting the biomedical research community, the ISSCR recognized NIH's success in establishing a strong legal and ethical framework that supports research with Human Fetal Tissue (HFT). The ISSCR highlighted the contributions of research with HFT—past and present—to vaccine development and human health and recommended that any efforts to reform how the NIH approaches ethics in biomedical research should acknowledge the success of this framework.