As Trump hails Regeneron treatment, his administration tries to block the science it used

CNN — President Donald Trump has been celebrating the dose of experimental monoclonal antibodies he was given last Friday, saying he thinks it helped him vanquish his coronavirus infection in record time. Trump’s base, of course, is strongly against abortion rights and his administration acted quickly to reverse many Obama era policies – including policies that moved forward scientific research involving human fetal tissue. While Regeneron did not directly use human fetal cells to make the monoclonal antibody treatment given to Trump, it did use cells derived from an abortion in the Netherlands back in 1972 to make the targets for its antibodies – the mimics of the coronavirus’ spike protein. “Research using such stem cells allows Regeneron to model complex diseases, test new drug candidates and can help unlock new scientific insights that ultimately could lead to the discovery of new treatments for people with serious diseases,” the company said in a statement posted last April. To make its treatments, including its Covid-19 treatments, Regeneron uses another technology that frightens some people – genetically engineered mice that have partly human immune systems and that produce human antibodies.