The chairman of the Nebraska Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee said Sunday he was "shocked" to learn that the University of Nebraska Medical Center is using tissue from aborted human fetuses for research. "I personally don't feel fetal tissue is an area we need to be going into," Sen. Jim Jensen of Omaha said. Jensen, who opposes abortion, said he was not ready to comment on whether his panel, which oversees the state's hospitals and clinics, would hold hearings on the matter. Sen. LaVon Crosby of Lincoln, another abortion opponent and a member of the Appropriations Committee, said she would talk with committee staff to see whether the Legislature could do anything to get the federal grant stopped. "It makes me cringe," she said of the fetal tissue research. "I just don't like the idea at all." The World-Herald reported Sunday that the Medical Center has been conducting research on Alzheimer's disease by using brain cells from aborted fetuses. Using such material is controversial among anti-abortion groups and supporters of the view that life begins at conception. The Medical Center started preliminary studies in 1993, the same year that the federal government lifted a ban on using federal funds for such research. Major studies began about two years ago, when federal funding was approved. The Medical Center receives more than $1 million a year for the research from the National Institutes of Health. The work has been reviewed by a Medical Center oversight committee. Tissue for the studies is provided by Dr. LeRoy H. Carhart, who operates the Bellevue-based Abortion & Contraception Clinic of Nebraska. Carhart is not paid for the tissue he supplies. By studying the brain cells, the scientists hope to find ways to prevent injury to the brain and to regenerate brain tissue that has been damaged by Alzheimer's disease. The studies are being done in conjunction with five other universities: Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern (in Illinois), Rochester (N.Y.) and Arizona. University of Nebraska regents who were available for comment Sunday said they were unsure whether the board specifically discussed the research when it was funded. The regents are given summaries of programs when federal funding is awarded, Medical Center spokesman Tom O'Connor has said. Regent Nancy O'Brien of Waterloo said her memory about the issue was "pretty foggy." "I just don't recall us having a discussion of it," she said, noting that the board does not approve each and every grant coming into the university. She declined to say whether the research bothered her. Robert M. Allen of Hastings said he, too, could not remember any discussion about the fetal tissue research. "I knew they were doing research on Alzheimer's disease," he said, "but I don't think anybody talked about a guy out of Bellevue." Allen expressed confidence in the Medical Center staff and the research they are doing. "I don't think they're doing anything wrong in what they are attempting to do here." Don S. Blank of McCook said word of the research "may have come before us on some list." Other members of the eight-person board could not be reached for comment.
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