The Trump administration has put limitations on using human fetal tissue in research, compromising research into treating HIV, according to reports.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) receives federal funding for medical research, meaning the federal government has more oversight on what they can spend their money on. Some scientists at NIH were focusing on learning how the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) attacks human tissues. For their experiment, they used tissue from aborted foetuses.

However, certain rules were quietly extended according to Science magazine, and researchers at NIH received a new order from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): They had to stop ordering human fetal tissue for experiments. The HIV study had to be halted.

The ban was never announced publicly by the HHS or any other government agency. According to The Mercury News, government officials ordered researchers not to discuss the rule change.

The NIH characterises the ban as a “pause” on procuring more stem cell tissue, and insists that researchers who need more may ask top officials for it. However, one researcher in San Francisco found that his contract was not being renewed for the next year, and the lab where he worked only had a guarantee of 90 more days of funding. The lab was using mice injected with human fetal tissue to conduct tests of drugs that could potentially prevent and treat HIV.

Using tissue from aborted foetuses has been controversial among conservative Christians for decades, and there have been suggestsions that this measure was implemented to appeal to the religious right.

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