The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has contracted with Advanced Bioscience Resource (ABR) – a biomedical company referred for federal criminal investigation – to provide “fresh” aborted baby tissue to engineer humanized mice for drug experimentation.

A new report from CNSNews.com quotes an FDA notice dated June 13 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the FDA:

The Government intends to solicit and negotiate directly with Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) Inc. and no solicitation will be issued. The objective is to acquire Tissue for Humanized Mice. ABR is the only company that can provide the human fetal tissue needed to continue the ongoing research being led by the FDA. Fresh human tissues are required for implantation into severely immune-compromised mice to create chimeric animals that have a human immune system. This human immune system allows us to test biological drug products for safety and efficacy.

According to the Congressional Research Service, “Fetal tissue used in research is obtained from elective abortions.”

The FDA signed its contract with ABR – which is located in the San Francisco Bay area – on July 25 and paid the company $15,900 for the fetal tissue from abortions, according to a General Services Administration contract.

Terence Jeffrey at CNSNews.com writes:

[B]y issuing a contract to acquire human fetal tissue to use in making mice with human immune systems, the FDA is using federal tax dollars to create a demand for human body parts that must be taken from babies who are aborted. Because it would not be able to create its “humanized mice” without fresh tissue taken from aborted babies, the FDA also has an interest in the continuation of legalized abortions at a stage in fetal development when the tissue needed to create these mice can be retrieved from the aborted baby.

The report comes following several years of congressional investigation into the abortion industry’s alleged complicit relationship with biomedical companies, such as ABR, that purchase the body parts of aborted babies. Supposedly, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s practices with regard to the sale of fetal body parts last December.

In December 2016, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley wrote in a letter to former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former FBI director James Comey that he was referring “the paid fetal tissue practices of the following organizations…to the FBI and the Department of Justice for investigation and potential prosecution,” and named ABR as one of the organizations:

StemExpress, LLC;

Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc.

Novogenix Laboratories, LLC

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte

Planned Parenthood Los Angeles

Planned Parenthood Northern California

Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest

“I don’t take lightly making a criminal referral,” Grassley said in a statement at the time. “But, the seeming disregard for the law by these entities has been fueled by decades of utter failure by the Justice Department to enforce it. And, unless there is a renewed commitment by everyone involved against commercializing the trade in aborted fetal body parts for profit, then the problem is likely to continue.”

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) – which conducted an undercover investigation revealing the alleged illegal practices of Planned Parenthood and its partners in the fetal tissue procurement industry – stresses that ABR is already under federal investigation.

“Advanced Bioscience Resources is under federal investigation right now for colluding with Planned Parenthood to sell aborted baby body parts for profit,” CMP said in a statement. “It is unconscionable that the United States government is still paying top-dollar in taxpayer money for the freshest, most high-quality dismembered baby hearts, lungs, livers, and brains.”

“By custom-ordering late-term aborted baby body parts for sale from Planned Parenthood partners like ABR, the FDA is directly complicit in these abortions and implies that these kids are worth more to the U.S. Government dead than alive,” the group continued. “HHS must provide full transparency and immediately terminate any and all such contracts, and the U.S. Department of Justice needs to do their job and hold ABR, Planned Parenthood, and those like them accountable to the law.”

Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action, also said in a statement sent to Breitbart News that such contracts initiated by the federal government “should be immediately terminated and the baby body parts trafficking industry shut down.”

“After an undercover investigation and Congressional investigation exposed the horrors of an industry that harvests and sells baby body parts, there is no excuse for anyone, much less the taxpayer-funded federal government to enter into contracts that prop up this gruesome practice,” he said.

CNSNews.com sent a list of 20 questions to the FDA regarding the acquisition of the aborted fetal tissue, including:

18—How many different abortion facilities will conduct abortions that provide this tissue to the FDA? 19—Will Planned Parenthood clinics conduct any of the abortions that provide the “fresh human tissue” acquired by the FDA under this contract to create these mice? 20—Are the mothers who agree to donate the tissue from their unborn babies for this FDA research informed that tissue taken from their aborted baby will be transplanted into a mouse?

The FDA, however, did not respond to the questions and sent only this statement:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is committed to ensuring that its research is conducted responsibly, conforms with all legal requirements, and meets the highest ethical standards. At the FDA, research involving human fetal tissue accounts for a very small fraction of the FDA’s total research and has been used in situations where it is critical to understanding how the human immune system responds to certain drugs and biologics. This work has led to a better understanding of a number of conditions and diseases that affect millions of Americans. The FDA’s researchers obtain fetal tissue from a non-profit Tissue Procurement Organization (TPO) that have provided assurances that they are in compliance with all applicable legal requirements, including relevant provisions relating to research involving human fetal tissue. FDA is not involved in the TPO’s sourcing of the tissue. In addition, the FDA has in place systems to ensure FDA research using fetal tissue, as well as any research funded by FDA, is in compliance with applicable federal, state and local regulations and guidelines, as well as FDA policies.

“It is outrageous that the FDA would aid in the trafficking of aborted baby parts and fetal tissue,” said Dr. David Prentice, vice president and research director at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, in a statement sent to Breitbart News. “This not only fosters government-sponsored participation in unethical research but continues use of outdated scientific methods. Humanized mice can and have been made, for years, using ethical cell sources, including umbilical cord blood and peripheral blood stem cells.”

“High-quality, modern scientific research has no need for unethical, tainted practices and grisly sources,” Prentice continued. “Our government should lead in ethics and in science, and should rescind any contracts for or use of aborted fetal tissue.”