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One of the drugs Donald Trump takes that he has touted as a potential “cure” for the coronavirus was developed using human cells originally obtained from an elective abortion, a practice repeatedly denounced by the president and many of his supporters.
The drug is a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies developed by Regeneron. The president received an 8-gram infusion under a “compassionate use” exemption when he was hospitalized over the weekend after testing positive for Covid-19. There is no cure for Covid-19 and the drug is not approved.
The stem cells that are used to develop the drug are known as HEK-293T cells, a line of cells that are used in laboratories. The cells were originally derived from an embryonic kidney after an elective abortion performed in the Netherlands in the 1970s.
Trump has consistently sought to restrict access to abortion, even more recently when he nominated conservative Catholic Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court last month. The anti-abortion movement is one of Trump’s most enthusiastic foundations.
The 2020 Republican Party platform explicitly opposes embryonic stem cell research and calls for a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
Trump has already limited embryonic stem cell research for ideological reasons. In 2019, his administration stopped funding for government scientists to work on studies involving embryonic stem cells, affecting about $ 31 million in research, according to Science Magazine.
“We stopped federal funding of fetal tissue research, which everyone felt was so important …” the president told his supporters in January 2020. “We are standing up to the pro-abortion lobby like never before.”
The HEK-293T cell line has been “immortalized,” which means that they divide freely in the laboratory. Regeneron said the company does not consider cells as “tissue.”
“This is how you want to analyze it,” a Regeneron spokeswoman, Alexandra Bowie, told the MIT Technology Review. “But the 293T cell lines available today are not considered fetal tissue, and otherwise we do not use fetal tissue.”
The development of the Regeneron antibody cocktail is supported by a $ 450 million grant from the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority (Barda).
Susan B Anthony List, a leading anti-abortion group in the United States, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the anti-abortion movement has influenced other Covid-19 drugs in development. At least five Covid-19 vaccine candidates used HEK-293T cells or a proprietary cell line developed by Janssen from an elective abortion in 1985.
In April, the influential US Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote to the US government asking it to “encourage” candidate vaccines developed without the use of such cells.
“It is vitally important that Americans have access to an ethically produced vaccine – no American should be forced to choose between getting vaccinated against this potentially deadly virus and violating their conscience,” the letter read, Science Magazine reported.
Regeneron has worked with the US government to develop monoclonal antibody therapies for years. In 2018, researchers from Regeneron and the U.S. government used the same stem cell line in developing a therapy for the Ebola virus, according to a study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
“Research using these stem cells enables Regeneron to model complex diseases, test new drug candidates, and may help unlock new scientific insights that could ultimately lead to the discovery of new treatments for people with serious illnesses,” Regeneron said. in an April 2020 release.
Regeneron’s drug is not available to the public and has only been tested in 275 people to date. Therapies in the same class as Regeneron’s Antibody Cocktail cost on average more than $ 96,000 per course.
The Trump administration has consistently worked to limit access to abortion in the United States and abroad. Vice President Mike Pence has said, “I long for the day that Roe v Wade will be sent to the ash of history,” referring to the US Supreme Court decision that has allowed women to obtain legal abortions since 1973.
