Did abortion pill manufacturer’s paid ‘consultants’ disclose conflicts of interest?

Public data reveals that generic abortion pill manufacturer GenBioPro has paid approximately $165,000 in “consulting fees” and “honoraria” in the past few years — and the recipients do not always note this as a potential conflict of interest in published studies.

In 2019, GenBioPro was approved by the FDA as the generic manufacturer of mifepristone (200mg), the abortion pill, and it has been financially supported by pro-abortion philanthropists — much like the drug’s name brand (Mifeprex) manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, which was approved in 2000 for induced abortion in combination with the drug misoprostol. GenBioPro recently requested to “intervene” in a significant abortion pill lawsuit where it claimed to be the “sole supplier of generic mifepristone in the United States.”

It is significant that GenBioPro now controls roughly two-thirds of the abortion pill market.

Uncovering “financial relationships”

The public data website Open Payments (openpayments.cms.gov) exists to “collect[] and publish[] information about financial relationships between drug and medical device companies (referred to as ‘reporting entities’) and certain health care providers (referred to as ‘covered recipients’). These relationships may involve payments to providers for things including but not limited to research, meals, travel, gifts or speaking fees.”

Why is this important? Transparency and accountability.

As a 2021 CMS report notes, Open Payments “is a statutorily required, national disclosure program that promotes transparency and accountability by making information about the financial relationships between reporting entities and covered recipients available to the public.”

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website was established in 2013 and contains data including “payments and other transfers of value made to covered recipients, along with ownership and investment interests held by physicians or their immediate family members in the reporting entities.” Data totals retrievable at Open Payments differ from totals published in the annual reports.

The “sole” generic U.S. abortion pill supplier’s financial interests

It is rare that the abortion industry receives any scrutiny — particularly from mainstream media and political allies. Therefore, the data revealed on Open Payments can help the public to connect financial dots, so to speak, when the media fails to do its job.

Open Payments reveals that GenBioPro paid $44,100 in consulting fees in 2023, $39,850 in 2022, $36,951 in 2021, and $39,875 in 2020. Those fees were distributed to just four physicians — all of whom have significant connections to abortion.

CMS defines a consulting fee as “[a] payment that a company makes to a physician for advice and expertise about a medical product or treatment,” adding that “[c]onsulting fees are typically arranged with a written agreement between a company and physician based on the company’s particular business needs. These payments often vary depending on the consulting physician’s expertise.”

The four physicians who received consulting fees are detailed below from data sent to CMS from January 2017 through December 2023.

DeShawn Taylor = $139,000 in consulting fees

Taylor is currently a senior medical director GenBioPro (GBP), according to Vox. Taylor was given the lion’s share of the consulting fees, receiving $31,875 in 2020, $32,251 in 2021, $36,350 in 2022, and $38,400 in 2023. In addition, Taylor received food and travel payments.

Taylor was one of the Planned Parenthood abortionists recorded in undercover video by the Center for Medical Progress admitting to committing abortions “up to 24 weeks” and described needing to “hit the gym” in order to have the strength to perform second-trimester D&E abortions without the use of digoxin. Taylor claimed in a court brief filed in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court that “abortion saves lives.” She founded the Desert Star Institute for Family Planning (DSIFFP) abortion facility in 2017. Ironically, GenBioPro’s president Evan Masingill, was previously listed as one of the first board members to join the abortion facility.

Taylor also co-authored the ‘no-test’ abortion pill protocol, in which she disclosed her associations with GBP.

Matthew Reeves = $14,000 in consulting fees

Reeves is the founder of the DuPont Clinic in Washington, D.C. — a late-term abortion facility. Reeves was given $1,500 in 2023, $2,700 in 2022, $3,000 in 2021, $3,700 in September 2020, and $3,100 in May 2020.

Reeves failed to disclose any of this to the pro-abortion Journal Contraception, which published “One-day versus two-day mifepristone–misoprostol interval prior to initiation of misoprostol during late second trimester medication abortion: A cohort study,” co-authored by Reeves, in its April 2024 issue. Though Reeves did not disclose this particular conflict, he disclosed the conflict in a separate study published in September 2024.

Reeves’ online bio and LinkedIn page indicates that he is a former medical director of the National Abortion Federation, former National Medical Committee Chairperson and “physician” at Planned Parenthood, Associate Director for Research at the Fellowship in Family Planning at Washington Hospital Center, and Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

His Johns Hopkins bio states that he was “faculty at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and an attending physician at Magee-Womens Hospital working in both the Ultrasound and Gynecologic Specialties divisions” before moving to D.C.

According to Reeves’ LinkedIn page, “He currently has appointments as an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Stanford University and as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Reeves attended Harvard Medical School and completed residency in obstetrics & gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He then completed the fellowship in Clinical Ultrasound at UCSF followed by the Fellowship in Family Planning at the University of Pittsburgh.”

Reeves also served on the board of DKT International, recently accused of shipping abortion drugs into the U.S. manufactured by the Delhi-based Synokem Pharmaceuticals Ltd, which was alleged to have a “shoddy quality record.” DKT’s U.S. affiliate is the abortion chain Carafem (corporate name FemHealth USA, Inc.),which was part of the U.S. TelAbortion clinical trial, sponsored by Gynuity Health Foundation.

Rachel Steward = $4,600 in consulting fees

Steward co-authored a controversial abortion pill study published by ACOG’s Green Journal in 2019 (prior to receiving funds), which essentially attacked the effectiveness of the “abortion pill reversal” (APR) protocol. From GenBioPro, Steward received $1,200 in 2023, $800 in 2022, $1,400 in 2021, and $1,200 in 2020.

Steward works at the Family Planning Associates (FPA) abortion chain in California. Both FPA and “Rachel Steward” are mentioned by name in the Center for Medical Progress undercover investigations (transcript here).

Kurt Barnhart = $3,000 in consulting fees

Barnhart, a Penn Medicine physician and Vice Chair for Research and the Director of the Women’s Health Clinical Research Center in the Perelman School of Medicine, received $3,000 in 2023 from GenBioPro.

In 2020, while he technically did not have “competing interests” at that time, Barnhart published a commentary in the Lancet promoting the use of mifepristone for miscarriage treatment.

GenBioPro’s paid “honoraria”

GenBioPro paid $4,000 in “honoraria” to multiple additional people between 2020 and 2021. An honorarium is “[s]imilar to consulting fees, but generally reserved for a brief, one-time activity” which is “generally provided for services without a set price,” the CMS website stated.

Jennefer Russo, who claims to have held leadership roles at Planned Parenthood, received $500 from GBP in 2020.

Russo is a past Medical Director and Vice President of Clinical Services for Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties (PPOSBC), editor for the pro-abortion journal Contraception, and chief medical officer of DuPont Clinic, according to the New York Times. Russo can also be heard in an undercover Center for Medical Progress video discussing the sale of aborted fetal parts. The video confirmed that Russo’s Planned Parenthood affiliate worked with the for-profit biotech company, DaVinci Biosciences, which harvested the organs of aborted babies to sell nationally and internationally.

Planned Parenthood OC Changes Abortions to Harvest Intact Fetuses for Local Company's Sales

GenBioPro also paid $500 to each of the following in honoraria:

• Namrata Mastey (2021) – Associate Medical Director for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (LinkedIn) and UC Davis Family Planning Fellow

• Donna Adams-Pickett (2020)

• Angela Dempsey-Fanning (2020) – abortionist in Charleston, South Carolina; Planned Parenthood worker; and Ryan Residency program director at Medical University of South Carolina

• Amy Hermesch (2020) – Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU)

Not listed by CMS but confirmed as consultants for GenBioPro:

Sally Rafie – served as consultant for GenBioPro, pharmacist at UC San Diego and former pharmacist consultant for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest.

Kirsten M J Thompson – received “personal fees” from GenBioPro, Program & Communications Director at UCSF’s Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health (an abortion training center), has published research at JAMA Open Network and AJOG.

Dr. Ashish Premkumar – consultant for GenBioPro, Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago, funded by the Society of Family Planning (SFP).