Is a God-fearing scientist the next casualty of the Trump White House?

By | December 20, 2018

Anti-abortion advocates want President Trump to fire Dr. Francis Collins, the wildly popular, Obama-appointed head of the government’s medical research agency.

The calls to oust the National Institutes of Health director are coming to a head amid White House and congressional scrutiny over government-funded experiments that use parts of aborted fetuses. The prospect that the research might end, or that Trump might appoint someone else to Collins’ position, terrifies many scientists. Anti-abortion organizations, though, say that Collins’ leadership clashes with the deeply held values of the administration and that he should go.

Abortion controversies, involving questions about ethics, scientific advancement, and the beginning of life, are familiar to the NIH, the world’s premier research institution. But the latest comes with a particularly sardonic twist for Collins, a physician-geneticist and passionate evangelical Christian who describes himself as “troubled by abortion.”

“I do think that part of the argument has been missing a little bit in the fetal tissue debate: the sort of immediate assumption that if you’re in support of fetal tissue research that you must also think abortion is just fine,” Collins told the Washington Examiner. “Even for people who are pro-life, who are troubled by abortion, the use of fetal tissue for research, since they are being derived anyway, if that is going to save a life someday, seems like a credible stance.”

Collins’ reasoning outrages people devoted to ending abortion. Advocates from March for Life, the organization that runs the annual rally protesting the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, have told White House officials they want Collins out.

“The current NIH director doesn’t accurately reflect the pro-life and pro-science views of the current administration,” said Tom McClusky, vice president of government affairs for the group. “The president would be better served to find a replacement that does.”

David Prentice, research director at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, agreed.

“We are not questioning his faith,” Prentice, who is a cell biologist, said of Collins. “Certainly that relationship and faith is between him and God. There are obviously a variety of viewpoints within the Christian community with these life issues. All we have to go on are his policy positions.”

Groups opposed to fetal tissue research are not just opposed to abortion, but contend the practice of using the tissue in experiments is degrading, wrong, and unnecessary. They question whether fetal tissue research is effectual and believe other types of tissues work better and should be used instead — adult stem cells, umbilical cord, amniotic fluid, tissue from the placenta, or discarded tissue from surgery on an infant.

“There doesn’t have to be an incompatibility between science and ethics,” Prentice said. “There are a lot of pro-life scientists out there, but they are often reluctant to voice it because of public retribution.”

While many other scientists and medical advocacy groups are open to the possibility of alternatives in the future, they maintain that fetal tissue has unique properties that make it work best for certain research.

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Organizations such as the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society oppose efforts by House Republicans to ban government funding on the research, saying it could hamper medical efforts to understand birth defects, develop cures for infectious diseases, and tackle chronic illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease.

Last week, the NIH appeared to try to assuage anti-abortion critics by announcing that it would award $ 20 million over two years to scientists who study alternatives to fetal tissue.

The Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH’s parent agency, has been reviewing the issue since September, and has asked most government scientists to temporarily halt the acquisition of new fetal tissue. Officials have stressed that they have not yet decided what they will do, and have been meeting with anti-abortion advocates, scientists, ethicists, and patient advocates for input.

Collins’ job will be to carry out whatever the administration decides, though the NIH gets to weigh in.

The biology textbook author Kenneth Miller, a Roman Catholic and cellular biologist at Brown University, said that a ban would affect medical research more than it would Collins personally. “He’d have to execute the ban,” Miller said. “But it would make the job of researchers that much more difficult.”

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the appropriations committee that oversees NIH, acknowledged he had spoken to Collins about the issue. He said he believed other areas of medical research held more promise, including advancements in immunotherapy to treat cancer.

“He is a good leader at NIH,” Blunt said of Collins. “I count him a friend. I would hope that they focus their efforts on the areas that have the most potential for success and don’t get bogged down in a fight that will only be harmful to the overall cause of research.”

In May 2017, 41 conservative U.S. representatives sent Trump a letter asking him to replace Collins, but they haven’t followed up in light of the latest debate. The Washington Examiner hasn’t obtained evidence that Collins’ job is in jeopardy.

“As a matter of standard policy, we do not conduct performance reviews in the press,” said Caitlin Oakley, a spokeswoman for HHS.

But Trump has been unpredictable in his firings, and anti-abortion advocates have developed a strong foothold in his administration. Trump has kept his promises to them. He has appointed judges that align with their positions, allowed religious and moral exemptions to the Obamacare contraception mandate they’ve sought, and examined how to untether pregnancy prevention funds from organizations that also provide abortions.

“We really are very pleased with President Trump and his pro-life policies and all of the promises he has kept,” Prentice said. “We just want to see that continue.”

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If the policies don’t change, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List said in a statement, then “it would be the first time the Trump administration has broken with the pro-life movement.”

Francis in the middle

NIH staffers often use the word “fun” when they describe Collins, 68, who rides a Harley Davidson to work when the weather permits and plays the guitar in a band called the Affordable Rock ’n’ Roll Act. When Collins gives speeches at conferences and graduations, he often whips out his double-helix-emblazoned guitar and sings along to lyrics he wrote.

Collins hosts lawmakers on the sprawling NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., to drive home the message that spending government dollars on medical research is a worthwhile investment. He secured the latest increase, to $ 37 billion, with enthusiastic support from Republicans, and is beloved by Democrats as well. Earlier in his career, he led the Human Genome Project that mapped human DNA.

When he was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2009, Collins faced attacks from secular scientists based on statements about religion. He had written about the intersection of faith and science in his book The Language of God, and, before becoming NIH director, he founded the BioLogos Foundation, an organization with the mission of harmonizing science and biblical faith. He often quotes the Christian author C.S. Lewis.

“When Collins was announced he got a lot of flack because he was an evangelical Christian, and people assumed he would be anti-science and restrict research on embryonic stem cells and so forth,” said Miller, who advised Collins on his book and has similar views about the relationship between faith and science. “I certainly didn’t think that was true.”

Last year, research and medical groups breathed a sigh of relief when Trump announced Collins would stay on. Many scientists still don’t like that he speaks so openly about God but have come to trust his judgment.

“I never would call for him to resign,” said Jerry Coyne, a former critic who is a prominent evolutionary scholar and an atheist. “He’s a good scientist and a good administrator. I admire him for sticking up for something that is actually going to help humanity.”

Anti-abortion groups have opposed Collins ever since he supported embryonic stem cell research under Obama. At the time, Collins asserted that using the cells, which were donated and would otherwise be thrown out, was an ethical position, particularly given that they could be used to save lives in the future. He implied that he has a similar view of the ethics of using aborted fetal tissue.

“To take the results of that termination and discard it, versus trying to come up — in rare instances — for some kind of research application with full consent, seems to me like a totally ethical stance,” he said.

For many Republicans, the debate about fetal tissue research is colored by their condemnation of Planned Parenthood. In 2015, the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress released a series of secretly taped and edited videos that appeared to show Planned Parenthood staff discussing the illegal sale of fetal tissue and altering the way it performs abortions to collect more intact specimens. Planned Parenthood has noted that it has been cleared of breaking the law in more than a dozen states and congressional investigations have not found evidence that the organization illegally sold fetal tissue for profit.

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Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, which has called for Collins to be fired, has accused Planned Parenthood of “trafficking in infant body parts” and called fetal tissue research “an offensive misuse of taxpayer funds that provides additional income to the abortion industry.” In 2018, the NIH spent roughly $ 98 million in grants for projects that use aborted fetal tissue.

According to Planned Parenthood, no more than 1 percent of its 600 clinics provide donations. It used to accept payments for transferring tissue, which is allowed under law, but has been absorbing the costs since the videos surfaced.

An NIH without Collins?

Collins has passionate allies in and outside of Congress, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is close to the Trump White House.

“I know he takes these kinds of issues very personally and very seriously,” Gingrich said. “I think he has probably been the most important person in health research and biomedical research, and his leadership at NIH has been extraordinary.”

Gingrich, who has been a steadfast advocate of biomedical research, suggested that he sees the potential for fetal tissue research to advance medical science. That understanding made him “very uncomfortable,” he said, because his own views are “very pro-life.” His wife, Callista, is U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

“I think it’s a very difficult challenge because on the one hand much of the research they are doing right now is literally saving children’s lives, and there is this sort of balance of ethics,” Gingrich said.

Some scientists who have expressed concern about Collins’ leadership before now say that is overridden by their fear of whom Trump might pick to replace him.

Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Davis, has several qualms about Collins’ leadership, but he wouldn’t want him to be replaced now.

“Since Trump was elected many people say, ‘I don’t really like him, but he’s a supporter of science and medical research, and you could get someone who doesn’t believe in science,’” Eisen said. “That scares a lot of people.”

Coyne said “there would be an outcry” if Collins were to be fired.

“Almost every scientist says he has done a good job … I feel there is something sacrosanct about the NIH,” he said. “It is such a good influence for the U.S.”

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