Planned Parenthood Director Accused of 'Selling' Baby Body Parts Names StemExpress Company That Offers Fetal Liver Cells for $24K in Product Catalog
The biotechnology company named in a secret video recording of a Planned Parenthood executive casually discussing over a meal and wine the harvesting of fetal organs sells "fresh" fetal liver samples for as high as $12,124 while its cryopreserved fetal samples go for $24,250.
"Fetal Liver CD133+ Stem/Progenitor Cells (FL-CD133) are positively selected from homogenized liver tissue," StemExpress explains on page 56 of its 2015 product catalog. Prices for fetal liver tissue samples range from $3,031 to $24,250, depending on a client's interest as well as the format and quantity of the cells. The company also sells four other kinds of cells derived from fetal liver, according to its catalog, which states that the products are "For In Vitro Research Use Only."
StemExpress LLC, registered in California in March 4, 2010, by Catherine Dyer, states on its website that it is "a multi-million dollar company that supplies human blood, tissue products, primary cells and other clinical specimens to biomedical researchers around the world to fuel regenerative medicine and translational research."
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The company is ranked by Inc. magazine as No. 363 on its list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in 2014. StemExpress grew more than 1,300 percent over a three-year period, starting with $156,312 in revenue in 2010 to pulling in $2.2 million in 2013.
StemExpress was mentioned by Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's senior director of medical services, in a controversial video released this week and filmed in July 2014 by The Center for Medical Progress. In the video, the PPFA executive discusses abortion clients donating fetal tissue for research and how some abortion doctors try to preserve body parts, all while seated at a table in a restaurant with an unidentified man and woman, fake buyers, whose faces never appear on camera.
Nucatola responds to the male fake buyer's inquiry about the possibility of one day partnering directly with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, as opposed to local affiliates, for their dealings in fetal body parts.
"So, we tried to do this, and at the national office we have a Litigation and Law Department which just really doesn't want us to be the middle people for this issue, right now," Nucatola says in response. "Because we actually, we were approached by StemExpress to do the same thing. One of the northern California affiliates said, 'We're working with these people, we love it, we think every affiliate should work with them.'
The Center for Medical Progress's edited video has been viewed more than 1.9 million times since being published July 14.
Nucatola also discusses in the video questionable abortion procedures, the harvesting of fetal organs, and monetary figures — the latter described by Planned Parenthood as "standard reimbursement fees for costs associated with tissue donation programs, which every health care provider has and which the federal law provides for."
The Center for Medical Progress insists, however, that their edited nearly nine-minute video (excerpted from a nearly-three-hour version) conclusively proves that America's leading reproductive healthcare and abortion provider "sells the body parts of aborted fetuses" — a practice prohibited by federal law.
Since The Center for Medical Progress released its "investigative video," officials in Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas and Louisiana have demanded probes of the allegations that Planned Parenthood Federation of America illegally profits from the selling of aborted fetus' body parts. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, also asked "relevant (congressional) committees" to investigate whether Planned Parenthood "monetizes an unborn child."
In addition to its videos, The Center for Medical Progress also released what it says are "primary source documents relating to Planned Parenthood's participation in the sale of aborted fetal tissue collected during CMP's Human Capital project." The list of these documents, the authenticity of which The Christian Post has not verified, includes an alleged 2013 "Procurement Log of baby parts harvested from" a Planned Parenthood facility in California.
The organization, which says it is "a group of citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances description," describes the document as such:
This is a Procurement Log of baby parts harvested from Planned Parenthood Mar Monte's flagship abortion clinic in San Jose, CA, on January 10, 2013. A total of 9 specimens were harvested from 8 different fetuses by StemExpress. At the time, StemExpress paid Planned Parenthood $50/specimen, so this one day of procurement at one clinic yielded $450 for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. StemExpress also harvests from PPMM clinics in Sacramento, Fresno, and Stockton, and so a similar yield at those clinics just one day per week means at least $1800/week, $7200/month, and $86,400/year for this Planned Parenthood affiliate.
Although StemExpress informs potential buyers that it is prohibited by law from sharing certain demographic information related to tissue samples, the log of fetal parts this California Planned Parenthood location allegedly sent to the biotech company lists the ethnicities and ages of the women from which it procured the various "specimens."
StemExpress.com, registered with GoDaddy.com LLC on Dec. 30, 2010, had been presenting a "Maintenance mode is on" message since The Center for Medical Progress released its July 14 videos. The website was back online Thursday afternoon, with the down time attributed to "excessive traffic" knocking it offline.
The Christian Post called the Placerville, California, offices of StemExpress LLC Thursday and requested to speak with a media representative, but was told that due to the attention the secret recording of Planned Parenthood's Nucatola was generating, calls were not being transferred.
However, a statement "concerning recent media stories" was published Thursday afternoon on StemExpress.com:
