Stem Cell Research in a Judge's Hands

deman1985 wrote to mention a San Francisco Chronicle article discussing the future of stem cell research in California. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has had a suit filed against it for doling out money to stem cell research groups, and the future of the organization is now in the hands of the Judge on the case. From the article: "The taxpayers groups said that at least five members of the 29-member board have conflicts because they are University of California officials and the school's various campuses have already applied for stem cell grants. Others on the board are biotechnology executives and investors whose investments could benefit from stem cell grants."

Comments

This will just be passed again

[mrpeebles]

I don't remember exactly what the numbers were, but as I recall this proposition passed in CA by a large margin. Even if it has to be passed again, I think it will be. This will be at most a temporary setback.

Clarification on the headline

[Swift Kick]

The institute which is being sued was a direct result of the passing of California's Proposition 71.

The proposition basically said that a institute would be created to oversee applications and grants of stem cell research, and fund said research by issuing bonds worth up to $350million per year, up to a maximum of $3billion overall.

It's ironic that the representativesof the voters that voted this bill in are the ones that are now suing the institute the bill created, completely ignoring the fact that the bill itself states that funding deliberations are exempt from the state's open-meeting law.
Go read it, it's all here: http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/bp_nov04/prop_71_en tire.pdf

They voted for something they DID NOT READ AND UNDERSTAND FULLY. This is a sad reality in today's elections; very rarely you find anyone who actually knows what they're voting for, instead following the misleading propaganda out there, with stupid statements like "If you don't pass this bill, millions of kids will die!". Just check out the homepage for the institute itself:

http://www.curesforcalifornia.com/

Sometimes, it boggles the mind how ignorant and idiotic my fellow Californians can be....

Re:Get a clue... Nobody has ever banned the resear

[tfoss]

If there are so many promising avenues out there, just begging to be investigated, so they can yield fabulous, cheap treatments, then private reseach, funded by private dollars will find them.

Baloney. Private industry, by and large, does not fund basic research. They wait for governmentally funded research to get to a nearly-marketable place, and then take it up. Stem cell research is still a long way from being marketable, and thusly, big pharma is happy to sit around making obscene amounts of money from cialis, vioxx (doh), etc etc until we're 10 years down the road researchwise.

Anyone that thinks that a government operation funded by someone elses money can make more rational decisions that a private company investing it's hard earned $$ needs to have their head examined.

Anyone who thinks private companies spend more than a pittance on basic research needs to have their head examined. Speaking as a biomedical researcher, I can assure you that the vast majority of basic reasearch occurs in publically funded labs. The non-linear nature of basic scientific research means for-profit companies have little patience with it.

If the market says that it's a losing bet, I don't want to fund that bet w/ my tax dollars instead. Unfortunately, my fellow voters in this state, aren't as smart.

This fallacy of the market as an all-knowing, all-powerful, most-efficient means of everything, though accepted by you, is not accepted by everyone (including, fortunately, the majority of our fellow californians). There are many areas where market forces are applicable and positive...but basic biomedical research, like law enforcement, like road-building, like military protection, like public health, is simply not one of them.

-Ted