Republicans: Moving Medical Science BACKWARDS again: White House ends fetal tissue research by federal scientists

Source; Nature Magazine

When you have Republicans in control of government, you can be assured that there will be ZERO Progress in medical science. After all, it was the Bush Administration that blocked Stem Cell research, and that's the SAME stem cell research that was cleared later by the Obama Administration that ALLOWED MY SHOULDER TO HEAL.
Now, the current Republican Administration is back to the stupidity. 
  This is a HUGE BLOW in the fight against CANCER, BIRTH DEFECTS, HIV and the ZIKA VIRUS.
  If you want to make medical advancements, you need to vote for Democrats, pure and simple.

Here's an article from the Associated Press:

White House ends fetal tissue research by federal scientists
By The Associated Press June 5, 2019 1:15 pm


Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md. The Trump administration is ending the medical research by government scientists using human fetal tissue...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Wednesday it is ending medical research by government scientists using human fetal tissue, overriding the advice of scientists that there’s no other way to tackle some health problems and handing abortion opponents a major victory.

The Health and Human Services Department said in a statement that government-funded research by universities that involves fetal tissue can continue, subject to additional scrutiny.

The policy changes will not affect privately funded research, officials said.

WHAT IS IT USED FOR? 
Fetal tissue is used in research on HIV and childhood cancers, treatments that enlist the body’s immune system to battle cancer, and the hunt for a vaccine against the Zika virus, a cause of birth defects. 

NOW WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FETAL TISSUES? - IT GOES IN THE TRASH.
The tissue from elective abortions would otherwise be discarded. Scientists use it to produce mice that model how the human immune system works.


THE DANGER OF THESE RIGHT-WING, ANTI-ABORTION IDIOTS
Ending the use of fetal tissue by the National Institutes of Health has been a priority for anti-abortion activists, a core element of President Donald Trump’s political base.

The government’s top medical scientist, NIH Director Francis Collins, said as recently as last December that he believes “there’s strong evidence that scientific benefits come from fetal tissue research.”

A senior administration official said the decision announced Wednesday was the president’s call and not Collins’. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The government has funded research using fetal tissue for decades, under administrations of both political parties.

The government said there are currently at least three active federal research projects that involve human fetal tissue, and possibly as many as 12. Among university research projects funded by the government, officials said fewer than 200 of 50,000 rely on human fetal tissue.

No university-led programs will be affected for the time being, the administration said. New projects that propose to use fetal tissue and current projects up for renewal will be subject to additional reviews.

Last year, the administration announced a review of whether taxpayer dollars were being properly spent on fetal tissue research. As a result, NIH froze procurement of new tissue. On Wednesday, the administration also said it is not renewing an expiring contract with the University of California, San Francisco that involves fetal tissue research.

Although HHS said it was trying to balance “pro-life” and “pro-science” imperatives, medical investigators said they feared the government would halt important research to satisfy anti-abortion activists.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said in a statement that the administration has “once again done the right thing in restoring a culture of life to our government.”

The Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to elect lawmakers opposed to abortion, said in a statement that taxpayer funding ought to go to promoting alternatives to using fetal tissue in medical research.

The groups say alternatives are available; scientific groups say that’s not the case for every disease and condition.

Trump casts himself as “strongly pro-life,” and his administration has taken many steps to restrict access to abortion, which remains a legal medical procedure. Trump has nominated federal judges who oppose abortion, attempted to cut money for Planned Parenthood, and expanded legal protection for medical providers who object to abortion.

At a House hearing on the issue last December, neuroscientist Sally Temple told lawmakers the consensus opinion in the scientific community is that there is currently no adequate substitute for fetal tissue in some research areas.

Temple explained that tissue samples from different stages of the life cycle are not interchangeable. “It is not the same material,” she said. “It is a different developmental stage. It has unique properties.” She was testifying on behalf of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Testifying on behalf of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, which opposes abortion, biochemist Tara Sander Lee said tissues from infants who have to have heart surgery are among the alternatives. But Temple said researchers would readily use alternatives to fetal tissue if that was suitable.

Research involving fetal tissue accounted for $98 million in NIH grants and projects during the 2017 budget year, a small fraction of the agency’s overall research budget. NIH said that $98 million figure represents the entire budget for the grants at issue, even if only a smaller portion of a particular grant was devoted to fetal tissue research.

HHS said in its statement that is taking such steps through a $20 million grant program announced last December to “develop, demonstrate, and validate experimental models that do not rely on human fetal tissue from elective abortions.”

Copyright © 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

In the News: Hiring freeze shrunk National Weather Service staff before hurricanes hit

Hurricane Harvey's  Devastation in Houston  Cr: Elite daily

If you think that you're being served well by the Trump Administration, did you know his hiring  freeze shrunk National Weather Service staff before hurricanes hit?
  It's true. We need MORE scientists, more science and better satellites and more people at FEMA to help with recovery efforts.. NOT LESS.
  REMEMBER:  YOU can change things for the better by voting for Independents and Democrats.
FACT:  The Republican party does not support science (or emergency response personnel, so keep that in mind... ESPECIALLY if you live in Hurricane-prone areas.  Oddly, Texas and Florida voted for Trump. When tornadoes ravage the southern states, they will also be wishing for more scientists, forecasters and emergency responders. Something they won't get if they keep voting for the Republican Party. That's a fact.


Source: Washington Post

Ahead of what would turn out to be a potentially record-breaking hurricane season, the National Weather Service had 216 vacant positions it could not fill due to a governmentwide hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration, according to a recently released document.

Some of those Weather Service vacancies listed in the document, obtained by the Sierra Club through a Freedom of Information Act and shared with The Washington Post, were in locations that would be hit by the major hurricanes that barreled through the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

Staffing levels at the federal government’s weather bureau, responsible for tracking hurricanes and warning the public about hazardous weather, have fallen since 2010 when the agency employed more than 3,800 nonmanagerial and nonsupervisory employees. Staffing had declined so much that the Government Accountability Office wrote in May that employees were challenged in their ability “to complete key tasks.”

The Weather Service’s head count finally stabilized in 2016, with the forecasting agency starting and ending the year with about 3,400 on-the-ground workers.

But the staffing dip resumed in 2017, falling from 3,425 in December to 3,368 in August, according to data from the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a union representing meteorologists and other NWS employees.

“There's no question that the hiring freeze had an effect,” said Dan Sobien, NWSEO president. “But really it was the straw that broke the camel's back.”

He added, “The camel was already weighed down to the ground.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Weather Service’s parent agency, said the hiring freeze played a part in the recent decline in the agency’s ranks ahead of the triplet of intense storms — Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

“Yes, the hiring freeze was a contributing factor” for renewing that decline, NOAA spokesman Christopher Vaccaro wrote in an email.

But NOAA said its forecasting ability was not hampered by the shrunken staff.

“As already demonstrated during Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria, NOAA is prepared for the hurricane season and is operating at full tempo,” Vaccaro said. “Our forecasters at NOAA's National Hurricane Center, local Weather Service offices, and river forecast centers and elsewhere in the agency are fulfilling the agency's mission of protecting lives and property as they issue timely and accurate forecasts.”

The Weather Service vacancies that could not be filled because of the hiring freeze, which ended for the agency in April, include two meteorology positions at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Those posts remained unfilled as of mid-August, the agency said, right before Hurricane Harvey struck Houston.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami monitoring Hurricane Irma. (AP Photo/Andy Newman)

The freeze also prevented the Weather Service from hiring for two meteorology positions in Jacksonville, Fla., one meteorology position in Tampa and an electronics technician in Key West. 

   NOAA said all those posts, each in cities hit by Hurricane Irma, have been filled.

Ahead of the storms, the Weather Service readied “preselected backup offices” to handle forecasting for offices in the path of hurricanes in case communication was severed, Vaccaro said. For example, the field office near San Antonio covered the duties of the Key West office when Irma hit. The Miami office stepped in for the San Juan office in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria struck.

The Weather Service said that 248 positions remain vacant at the agency. Six of those vacancies are at offices in Florida. 

   "I continue to be deeply troubled by the number of unfilled positions at the National Weather Service and fatigued employees working overtime to compensate for these vacancies," Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) said in a statement. Crist, who served at Florida's Republican governor from 2007 to 2011, added that he shared his concerns with the president earlier this year.

The empty desks are not limited to low-level employees.

The National Hurricane Center, a Weather Service division, has been led by an acting director since May. An acting career official is heading NOAA until President Trump nominates and the Senate confirms a permanent replacement. Trump has waited longer than any other president to fill that role.

The union, however, contends there are actually 665 vacancies at the Weather Service as of July, far more than the agency claims, based on its own Freedom of Information response.

In either case, the vacancies at the Weather Service were numerous enough, even before Trump was inaugurated, for the GAO to audit the agency's hiring practices.

In May, it concluded that managers and employees “have experienced stress, fatigue, and reduced morale” because of the staff shortages. Because NOAA higher-ups make only “limited information” available on the status of hiring requests to those running Weather Service field offices, managers cannot “effectively plan and distribute workloads,” the internal government watchdog office found.

“People were literally getting sick from the workload,” Sobien, the union president, maintained.

GAO counted 455 open jobs as of September 2016 at the Weather Service, excluding headquarters positions, adding that worker data the agency provided "did not provide an accurate reflection of vacancies."

In July, the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in a report that lawmakers are “very concerned with the continued number of employee vacancies” even though Congress has provided enough money to fill them.

"Morale is at an all-time low and these dedicated public servants are exhausted," said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is not a member of the committee. "The president's hiring freeze only further compounded the vacancies."

But if the new administration gets its way, the Weather Service’s budget will not remain as flush. The White House has proposed cutting the agency's funding by 6 percent, which would include the loss of $62 million being used to update weather models and enable the agency to predict changing weather further out.

So far, the federal government has received positive marks from the public for its hurricane response. Seven in 10 call the overall response as “excellent” or “good," according to a Post-ABC poll conducted Sept. 18-21.

GOP Policies & Censoring Science -It Happened Before with Bush

     During the Bush Presidency, right-wing nuts infiltrated government agencies and tried to FORCE their conservative christian religion into SCIENCE research.  It made the news and was exposed after years of quiet harassment and modifying science from government agencies. NOW, it's very likely to happen again under a Trump presidency and right-wing Congress.

    At the time, the White House "science officer" had to "approve" all federal press releases. He was apparently a right-wing evangelical christian, "hell-bent" on including things like "creationism" into astrophysics research stories and forcing government agencies to stop saying "global warming" when the globe is warming.
  Every day I deal with science research and now see it may happen again. It was YEARS of torture to the scientific community.  

WHY THE CENSORING OF SCIENCE? - Because the Republican party does NOT believe in Science (or education). Their "science" is based on what they read in their bible, which makes them think the Earth is 6,000 years old instead of  4.543 billion years old as educated people know it is.

LEARN ABOUT THE CENSORSHIP IN 2006 - There was 2007 book about it called "Censoring Science" where all of this is reported.  READ IT. 
( You may recognize a name in it..)

Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming  by Mark Bowen

About the book: In January 2006, news broke that the Bush administration had been attempting to censor Dr. Hansen—obscuring his message and suppressing the vast body of his scientific work, which unequivocally demonstrates the reality and immense danger of global warming. Now, for the first time and with unfiltered access, writer and physicist Mark Bowen finally tells the exclusive story of Hansen’s decades-long battle to bring the truth about global warming to light. Censoring Science illuminates the real science behind global warming and maintains that we can still prevent environmental disaster, while both strengthening our economy and our national security.