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San Francisco Getting Stem Cell Agency HQ
karvind writes "San Francisco was chosen Friday as the headquarters for California's new stem cell agency, beating out San Diego, Sacramento and Emeryville. The stem cell institute was created in November after voters overwhelmingly approved a measure allowing the state to borrow $3 billion to fund human embryonic stem cell research. According to Yahoo, the plans call for a 17,000-square-foot office with a maximum of 50 employees who will help dole out nearly $300 million in research grants annually over 10 years."
That's right people, there is no federal ban on stem cell research of any kind. No matter what the media tries to tell you.
There's a ban on federal funding for stem cell research. Most funding for scientific research comes from the federal government, so taking away funding for stem cell research is far more significant than you make it out to be. States rarely pass legislation funding specific areas of scientific research like California has now, and I doubt that many states will follow in their footsteps. Future advances in this area will come solely because the residents of the states who fund it chose to do so, and I'm sure people in other states won't have a problem with curing their Parkinson's when a cure comes along. It's easy for people to whine about destroying embryos when there's not a concrete benefit out there that has come from it yet. When it happens, it'll be fairly easy to spot the hypocrites.
./ doesn't cover it because it is a tech story and /. doesn't cover tech stories any more.
I don't even want to know how much a new 17,000 ft office building is going to cost in San Fransisco - but that can't be cheap (assuming you can build it after the environmental impact).
All this and no real science being done yet.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
SO what you're saying is that we should demand funding from Canada, France, Russia, and Iraq because hey, the'll use the research too?
International funding of scientific research would be even better. This isn't about forcing anyone to do anything, it's about the government choosing to fund research. It's better when people from more places contribute, since everyone will benefit. What California is saying right now is, "Fine. You guys don't have to fund the research, but we're going to do it and create more jobs for our residents at the same time."
The problem with letting science direct "the funding" is that "the funding" is comming out of MY pocket and frankly, I'd rather decide where it goes than a bunch of people in DC or California, be they scientists or politicians.
That's what elected representatives are for. You alone can't fund anything worthwhile. When combined with your fellow citizens, you can.
I want my money going to research retinal implants for the blind rather than stems cells. The folks in California don't.
What you fail to realize is that funding for a specific area of research isn't commonplace. Since the federal government won't fund it, California is. The federal government does fund research to help the blind, so California doesn't need to pass special legislation to do so themselves.
Saving lives is not profitable. Viagra and headache medicines are. Private enterprise is going to go with the opportunities with the better margins.
Libertarians often have this funny idea that just because something is a good thing, there is a financial incentive to make it happen. This is in reality rarely the case.
What do we get for all these tax dollars? Why, scandals like Vioxx...and drugs like Nexium, which don't work much better than the pill they replaced, but have some little bit patented so it can't be cloned by generic drug companies...and a new catchy name or color for the public to run to their doctors, demand these premium drugs, and rip off our health insurance companies.
Please help metamoderate.
California voted for embryonic stem cell research, even though cord blood stem cells, as well as adult stem cells, show more promise. Right now california has a bufget defcit that is out of control, basic infrastructure is growing obselete, and health care and retirement benefits are bankrupting local governments. The UC medical system is turning away emergency room patients, UC Davis can no longer afford to pay for it's life flight helicopters, and a major trauma center in Los Angeles is being closed. Imagine what could have happened if the money for this "Feel Good", initiative had been used for...........HEALTHCARE
The above is very true. From a commercial standpoint research ventures generally fail becuase they require long-term investment with low payback. These research ventures are however something that needs to be done, the world is not yet perfect, and stopping research wont help that.
Science has what is called "indivisible benefit", it will always benefit everyone, regardless of whether they pay or not. However if the payment was left up the those willing to pay regardless then they would there wouldn't be enough money to fund research. The idea in government funding is forcing everyone to pay becuase it helps them in ways people don't realize directly enough that they would give money without being forced.
The same idea applies to cleaning up the environment, building a complete road infrastructure, millitary and so on. They are all essential things to do which cannot be done without forcing everyone to chip in.
BTW, sorry if this double-posts.
The funding is going to be like NIH funding, providing peer-reviewed grants for scientists, mostly from academia since the pharmaceuticals do very little of this type of research. If research money did not come from public or charitable funds, it would not be done since the short term profitability of trying to find a cure for Parkinson's or diabetes is rather dubious
The anger and frustration you seem to have about the drug industry should not be directed at the (relatively scant) tax dollars for basic research but towards the way that the drug research is structured downstream of the initial discoveries that encourage the wastefulness that you describe.
So all those embryos which are destroyed right now should go to waste instead of being harvested? If you have no idea what I'm talking about then maybe you should go look at what in-vitro fertilization entails and then come back.
That would be nice.
Are you aware of how much research there is and do you think you can for every piece of research figure out what the potential effects are? The thing about research is that in numerous cases it DOESN'T have specific uses or its uses are not known at the time, for example no one envisioned what the laser could do when it was first invented. So you want to help the blind, eh? What about growing new eyes using stem cells? How about research in growing organs, developmental biology research (ie: how does the body grow eyes), general implants, immune system research, neurobiology, computer science (better software control), electrical engineering (smaller electronics), camera research? How specific does it have to be?
And, since the existing stem cell lines are pretty much useless due to contamination, this boils down to a ban on effective research. Meanwhile, fertility clinics destroy embryos that will never be implanted or have the potential to become human beings -- each one a potential source of a new stem cell line -- every day. This is insanity.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
This isn't about forcing anyone to do anything, it's about the government choosing to fund research.
That's EXACTLY what this argument is about. It's about the federal government of the United States forcing people to pay for embryonic stem cell research even if they are morally opposed to the practice.
You talk about the government choosing to spend the money as if the government was the one who earned it. The people earned it, their representatives outlawed the use of federal funds for that purpose, and the president signed it.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.