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 experimentation.
Calling the critical coverage “an organized attempt to delegitimize science,” 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 “efforts to undermine important science using fetal tissue.”
“We 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,” Berg wrote to Collins.
Berg claimed that the press had been pursuing a series of “rotating attacks” 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 grafting infant scalps onto lab rats and allegations about utilizing organs from full-term and past-term infants. — Meghan Basham, “University of Pittsburgh Asked NIH For Help With Bad Press Over Fetal Organ Harvesting” at Daily Wire (April 20, 2022)
It’s been a long time since “delegitimizing science” meant anatomically correct drawings. Now it could mean protesting the coverup of murders.
You may also wish to read:
At Evolution News And Science Today: The appalling moral failure of Francis Collins. John West provides a, er, surprising and enlightening picture of the theistic evolution great. Not for the faint of heart.
and
Collins’s role in an experiment on premature babies: “Medical ethicists were appalled. “The word ‘unethical’ doesn’t even begin to describe the egregious and shocking deficiencies in the informed-consent process for this study,” said Michael Carome, MD, the director of the Health Research Group at the nonprofit (and politically liberal) group Public Citizen. “Parents of the infants who were enrolled in this study were misled about its purpose. … They were misled to believe everything being done was in the ‘standard of care’ and therefore posed no predictable risk to the babies.”
One way of looking at it: In light of the appalling treatment of infants under Collins’s regime, he is just the sort of individual that the New Yorker would want to represent evangelical Christians — or any other group that its staff despise.
Many children have died in great torment.