Stem cell institute under fire


This is an emerging story, and one that I haven't done all of the background research on, but I wanted to give everyone a heads-up that it's happening. I'll hopefully find some time to figure out what's up over the next couple of days

Stem cell opponents join forces
(AP) Two state senators with opposite views on stem cell research forged an odd political alliance Wednesday when they introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to "reform' the new $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which is already facing two lawsuits seeking to put it out of business.

Sens. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, and George Runner, R-Lancaster, also introduced legislation banning for three years so-called "multiple egg donations' from women who voluntarily submit to hormone injections to "superovulate' in the name of research. If passed, that law would effectively prevent the agency from funding human cloning projects for medical research for three years.

Runner opposed Proposition 71, which passed in November and created the institute that is to dole out $3 billion in grants supporting human embryonic stem cell research. Ortiz, on the other hand, endorsed and campaigned for the initiative.

But Ortiz has grown increasingly concerned with some of the proposition's fine print that allows for key agency committees to conduct much of their work behind closed doors.


The reason this is complicated (at least for me, but I'm guessing for a lot of us) is that I was gung-ho in favor of Prop 71 — it's a good idea; it's a black eye to George Bush; it's good for California scientists, i.e., people like me — but ever since it's been passed I've heard nothing but bad press: Not enough oversight; too much happening behind closed doors; a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Klein, etc.

For now: I tend to sympathize with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and think they should be left alone to do their thing, simply because I don't think that politicians ought to have close control over how scientific money is spent (once they decide how much money is to be spent in the first place, which in this case they didn't even have to do because the people decided directly).

Remember, after all, how this all got started: George W. Bush banned the use of federal money in stem cell research, i.e., An elected official had too much political control, and something bad happened. Prop 71, among other things, prevents politicians from destroying a whole field of inquiry just because they don't like it. To extend the idea: avoiding political control of science prevents the arbitrary or short-term thinking of individuals elected based on a whole different set of specialties from interfering with the progress of science, which I'm just going to come right out and say is complex and hard and not necessarily something that you want state legislators (or any politicians) making fine-tuning decisions about. Granted that George Bush had a very different agenda in mind when he made his executive order, I'm not so sure that it makes a huge difference that Senator Ortiz has beneficent intent.

I need to do some homework on this, but in the meantime, I invite comments.

Posted: Tue - March 22, 2005 at 11:08 AM   | Category:     |   |   | |


©
eXTReMe Tracker