Fauci Directly Funded University Experiements Attaching Aborted Baby Scalps to Rats

Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci bears direct responsibility for approving taxpayer funding of experiments at the University of Pittsburgh that grafted scalps from aborted babies onto the backs of laboratory rats, pro-life investigators charged Tuesday.

The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2020, used full-thickness skin from the scalps of babies aborted at 18 to 20 weeks of pregnancy—roughly five months gestation—to create “humanized” mice and rats for studying the human immune system. Photographs accompanying the study show the grafted tissue growing tufts of fine baby hair on the animals.

Federal records confirm that Fauci’s NIAID provided approximately $430,000 in grants to the University of Pittsburgh researchers in 2018 and 2019 for the project. Additional NIH support was also listed.

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Pro-life leaders stress that, as the longtime head of NIAID, Fauci owned ultimate oversight of how those grants were spent.

“Dr. Anthony Fauci owns every bit of this study and this issue because as the head of the NIAID office, the buck stops with him in terms of how those grants are spent,” said David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress.

Daleiden noted that Fauci told Congress the work proceeded “with the appropriate oversight and guidelines,” yet later copied a media headline into his personal notes disputing any personal role.

Daleiden and other pro-life advocates have highlighted the disturbing implications of the procedure itself. Obtaining intact scalps from five-month-old aborted babies indicates the children’s heads were likely whole, raising the possibility the tissue came from partial-birth abortions or infants delivered alive.

“You can actually see the photographs in the published study of little baby scalps grafted onto the backs of lab rats growing little baby hairs,” Daleiden said. “Those would have been the little hairs growing on heads of little infants … if they hadn’t been killed by abortion and then stitched onto lab rats for experimentation.”

The University of Pittsburgh has long drawn scrutiny from the pro-life movement as a major center for the collection and use of aborted fetal body parts. In 2021, the Center for Medical Progress released grant records and video evidence suggesting the university altered abortion methods to maximize usable tissue for its “Tissue Hub,” a practice critics say violates federal law.

Congressional concern prompted an official request for investigation. Then-HHS Inspector General Christi Grimm indicated her office would follow up. Yet newly released Freedom of Information Act documents obtained by Judicial Watch and independent researchers show that any probe remains incomplete or unresolved more than four years later.

Heavily redacted records reveal a cozy relationship between NIH officials and Pitt administrators, including a hastily arranged Zoom call after the university complained of being “unfairly targeted.” No public announcement has confirmed whether the investigation concluded or what findings, if any, resulted.Pro-life groups continue to demand a full, transparent investigation.

“As a taxpayer, I was horrified to learn that our government is actively funding this cruelty,” said Herb Geraghty, executive director of Rehumanize International and a University of Pittsburgh graduate.

Advocates have called on the incoming NIH director to audit past failures, publicly release the results of any HHS probe, and end all federal support for research using organs and tissue from aborted children.

From the pro-life perspective, the experiments represent a profound moral failure: the deliberate destruction of unborn human lives followed by the industrial use of their body parts in taxpayer-funded laboratories. Critics argue that no scientific goal justifies treating the remains of aborted babies as raw material for animal grafts, and that Fauci’s NIAID enabled the practice without adequate ethical scrutiny.