{"id":1447793,"date":"2022-04-20T13:36:08","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T17:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1447793"},"modified":"2022-04-20T13:36:25","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T17:36:25","slug":"university-of-pittsburgh-asked-nih-for-assist-with-bad-press-more-than-fetal-organ-harvesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/university-of-pittsburgh-asked-nih-for-assist-with-bad-press-more-than-fetal-organ-harvesting\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Pittsburgh Asked NIH For Assist With Bad Press More than Fetal Organ Harvesting"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Funiversity-of-pittsburgh-asked-nih-for-assist-with-bad-press-more-than-fetal-organ-harvesting%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1447793&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1224274749-scaled.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>New documents obtained by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.judicialwatch.org\/aborted-human-tissue-lab-contacted-nih-for-publicity-help\/\">Judicial Watch<\/a> reveal that the University of Pittsburgh asked the federal government for help dealing with negative media reports over its harvesting of fetal organs for experimentation.<\/p>\n<p>Calling the critical coverage \u201can organized attempt to delegitimize science,\u201d Pitt Vice Chancellor for science strategy and planning Dr. Jeremy Berg wrote to then-head of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, asking for his help to combat \u201cefforts to undermine important science using fetal tissue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe feel that the scientific community would benefit if more institutions could stand together to take some of the power out of the one at-a-time strategy that appears to be operating,\u201d Berg wrote to Collins.<\/p>\n<p>Berg claimed that the press had been pursuing a series of \u201crotating attacks\u201d against universities that use fetal tissue derived from abortion, saying that Pitt was the latest target. The school had been under fire for experiments that involved <a href=\"https:\/\/thefdrlst.wpengine.com\/2021\/05\/07\/university-of-pittsburgh-uses-taxpayer-funded-aborted-babies-for-medical-research\/\">grafting<\/a> infant scalps onto lab rats and allegations about\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncregister.com\/blog\/how-aborted-children-are-used\">utilizing organs<\/a> from full-term and past-term infants. Some medical experts suspected Pitt researchers may have obtained organs from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/pittsburgh-live-fetus-organs\">still-living<\/a> babies.<\/p>\n<p>On October 17, while Collins was still running the department, current NIH Director, Lawrence Tabak, replied that a meeting to brainstorm ways to combat negative media had been arranged with the deputy director for extramural research. Tabak added that he was blind copying Collins on the message.<\/p>\n<p>Judicial Watch obtained the email after a group of nearly 100 Congress members made a FOIA request to discover whether Pitt used federal money to fund research on tissue obtained from illegal abortions. Pitt has consistently maintained that it has complied with all federal and state laws.<\/p>\n<p>The email suggests that Collins, who has been touted as pro-life and a \u201cChristian who loves the Lord\u201d in evangelical media circles, was aware of Pitt\u2019s tissue-harvesting practices and willing to help defend them. The documents between Berg and the NIH undercuts the claims of unnamed sources in the NIH who told conservative talk show host <a href=\"https:\/\/ewerickson.substack.com\/p\/im-going-to-regret-writing-this?s=r\">Erick Erickson<\/a> that the Biden Administration\u2019s top science advisor may not have been aware of or approved of such experimentation.<\/p>\n<p>Though Collins had not spoken about Pitt\u2019s fetal tissue research publicly, in private, he defended it at an October event at the University of Chicago. In a leaked audio recording obtained by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/exclusive-in-leaked-audio-former-nih-director-new-biden-science-adviser-laughs-over-threatening-unemployment-to-force-vaccines-blames-trump-for-covid-19-deaths\">The Daily Wire<\/a>, Collins responded to a student\u2019s question about the ethics of Pitt\u2019s harvesting of fetal organs by saying it can be a moral good.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPregnancy termination is, at the present time, legal in the United States,\u201d Collins argued. \u201cWhether you\u2019re in support of it or not, it\u2019s happened \u2026 The material from those elective abortions is discarded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Collins went on to say that fetal tissue research can be \u201cextremely valuable in understanding how life works, how development happens, and how to treat certain diseases like Parkinson\u2019s disease.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies for breaking news, investigative reporting, sports, podcasts, in-depth analysis, books, and entertainment for a reason: because we believe in what we do. We believe in our country, in the value of truth and the freedom to speak it, and in the right to challenge tyranny wherever we see it. Believe the same? <\/em><em><u><a href=\"https:\/\/utm.io\/ueuP8\">Become a member now and join our mission<\/a><\/u><\/em><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New documents obtained by Judicial Watch reveal that the University of Pittsburgh asked the federal government for help dealing with negative media reports over its harvesting of fetal organs for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":1447824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1447793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1447793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1447824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1447793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1447793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1447793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}