Cercle Billed UCLA $765 Per Specimen, Warning Tax Language Could Imply Illegal Sales
Updated
Updated · Fox News · Sep 30
Cercle Billed UCLA $765 Per Specimen, Warning Tax Language Could Imply Illegal Sales
1 articles · Updated · Fox News · Sep 30
Summary
$765 per liver or thymus specimen appeared on UCLA purchase orders tied to Cercle Allocation Services, with one order totaling $5,355 for seven samples and another $3,825 for five.
September 2023 emails show Cercle pushed UCLA to revise the paperwork, saying sales-tax wording could wrongly suggest it was selling the tissue itself rather than charging procurement-service fees.
The records, obtained through a California public-records request made for Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden, do not establish that UCLA or Cercle broke the law; Fox also said it could not independently verify the specific samples were fetal tissue.
Federal law bars transfers of human fetal tissue for valuable consideration but allows reasonable payments for handling and preservation, and the released documents do not include Cercle invoices or cost calculations needed to test whether the flat $765 charge was permissible.
The UCLA-Cercle relationship appears to have continued into 2025, when a canceled Cercle ticket referenced a 'Liver and brain' request, though the records do not show any brain tissue was ultimately procured or transferred.
Why did UCLA pay the same $765 for every liver or thymus specimen, and where are the records proving it only covered procurement costs?
How does UCLA’s broader leukemia biospecimen research context change the debate over whether these specimen fees were routine cost recovery or something more?
What does Cercle’s warning about not calling the charges tissue sales reveal about how sensitive-specimen procurement is documented and policed?