Editor’s Note: This article is the seventh installment in a series. Previous articles can be read here: Bad Actors #1, Bad Actors #2, Bad Actors #3, Bad Actors #4, Bad Actors #5, Bad Actors #6.
If you want to learn the truth about potential corruption, the way to do that is to “follow the money.” The abortion industry is no different, especially when it comes to the money behind the abortion pill.
Over the past two decades, an incestuous abortion pill funding trail has led from investors in abortion pill manufacturer Danco Laboratories and its generic GenBioPro to various groups, location sites, and sponsors behind abortion pill clinical trials and studies which claim to show the abortion pill’s safety and effectiveness.
The Live Action News “Bad Actors” series has documented the ways that abortion industry power players have failed to comply with the strict safety requirements in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) REMS safety system placed on the abortion pill, mifepristone. The series shows how the abortion industry:
- Prescribes the abortion pill past FDA-approved limits.
- Fails to rule out dangerous ectopic pregnancies before administering the abortion pill.
- Is utilizing a one-drug ‘misoprostol-only’ abortion regimen.
- Has implemented regimen changes in disregard of the FDA’s approved safety protocols.
- Is prescribing or promoting abortion pills to non-pregnant women in violation of FDA safety requirements.
- Hides abortion pill complications by advising women to lie and ERs to falsify reports.
But possibly the most underreported information so far is that of the funding streams that all seem to point back to investors in the abortion pill.
Live Action News has documented how, from the outset, Danco’s manufacturing location, executives, company structure, and original investors have been shrouded in secrecy, with the exception of a select few like the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, and billionaire George Soros‘ Open Society Foundations.
Additional investors were recently unveiled by Mother Jones here.
Packard Foundation
In 1996, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation invested $14.2 million in Danco. Packard is also investing millions in the generic version of the drug made by GenBioPro, Inc.
But the foundation is also funding clinical trial sponsors, study sites, and authors as well.
Packard Foundation seeded Danco with $14M in early days 2014 AR
Packard funds the National Abortion Federation (NAF), NARAL, and the Population Council — the last of which brought the drug to the U.S. and set up Danco.
The foundation is a substantial donor to Planned Parenthood (which was a location site of abortion pill trials) as well as FemHealth, which operates in the U.S. under the name Carafem. FemHealth is a division of the Gates Foundation-funded group DKT International, which ships abortion pills internationally. DKT may be providing abortion drugs to Aid Access, which ships abortion drugs to the U.S. without FDA approval.
In addition, Gynuity Health Projects (a.k.a. GHP Solutions LLC), a sponsor of abortion pill clinical trials and studies (including the mail-order TelAbortion trial) has been funded by the Packard Foundation as has the University of California system, another study sponsor.
Gynuity Health Foundation funded by Gates Foundation Packard Ibis Tara Health Planned Parenthood
Buffett Foundation
The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (operated by billionaire Warren Buffett) also funded Danco.
On September 5, 2000, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, “As it turns out, for-profit Danco and its nonprofit partner, the Population Council Inc., a New York-based organization that promotes family planning world-wide, have received grants and loans to develop mifepristone from some prominent investors, including foundations set up by Warren Buffett, George Soros and the late David Packard [co-founder of Hewlett-Packard].” That account was later mentioned by CNN News.
In 2000, the Washington Post wrote, “The Buffett Foundation… made at least $2 million in interest-free loans to the Population Council… according to tax documents filed in 1995. That money was in turn used to conduct clinical trials of RU-486 [the abortion pill].”
Today, Buffett Foundation dollars flow to Planned Parenthood, a location site of many abortion pill trials, as well as Gynuity Health Projects. Buffett also funded the Population Council, which brought the abortion pill to the U.S. and helped to establish Danco.
Buffett is also investing in the University of California system, a collaborator in abortion pill clinical trials. In past years, Buffett gave $78 million to UC — and according to the New York Times, Buffett is the primary financier of the Bixby Center’s Ryan Residency Program at UCSF, where abortionists are trained.
The Buffett and Packard Foundations finance studies used to convince the public that abortion is safe, yet the media fails to point out any conflicts of interest.
George Soros
Billionaire George Soros is also one of the abortion pill’s few investors to have been made public. Soros has pumped millions of dollars into the University of California and has funded Planned Parenthood and Gynuity Health Projects.
Potential conflicts of interest also exist among industry spokespersons and study authors who claim the abortion pill is “safe,” as several have openly disclosed being on the payroll of Danco or GenBioPro.
In just one example, Dr. Daniel Grossman, a principal investigator in abortion pill clinical trials, including those for pharmacy dispensing, is also a senior adviser at Ibis Reproductive Health which — as recently as 2020 — was directly funded by Danco Laboratories and is currently funded by the Packard Foundation, a large investor in Danco.
In addition to tainted funding, there is evidence that the FDA has kept secret the experts who reviewed the studies the agency relied upon for approval of the abortion drug in the first place.
And while abortion pill investor dollars potentially taint the claim that the drug is safe, pro-abortion media allies remain silent. Read a detailed summary at Live Action News.
