Californians to vote on stem-cell research funding

Mark York
Daily Sundial

California could lead the nation in a first-of-its-kind state-funded stem-cell research program, which would circumvent the restrictive policy set in place by the Bush administration in 2001, if voters pass Proposition 71 in the Nov. 2 election.

The bill is known as the “California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative.” According to statements by the group “Yes on 71, Cures for California,” Proposition 71 is necessary in order to break the political logjam that has created a research gap.

“Yes on 71, Cures for California,” is a coalition of disease and advocacy organizations, medical groups, hospitals, and 23 Nobel Prize winners, including Harold Varmus, former head of the National Institutes of Health and now president and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

In a public statement, the group said it will support research at California’s medical schools, hospitals and universities so that scientists working there can use stem cell research to find cures that could potentially save millions of lives.

As the bill and the scientific literature states, stem cells are “nonspecialized” cells that can generate new cells, tissues and organs.

Sponsors of the bill, including State Controller Steve Westly, believe this research has the potential to lead to breakthroughs in diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, HIV/AIDS, ALS and spinal cord injuries, while providing economic benefits to the state.

It will, according to the proposed law, authorize $3 billion in state tax-exempt bonds with $295 million per year allocated to research facilities over a period of 10 years.

Repayment will be deferred for five years to protect the current economic recovery period from an extra burden.

A federal plan signed by President Bush in the summer of 2001, just prior to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, allowed federal funding for research on only 63 existing embryonic stem-cell lines and banned new research for any other lines.

It also prohibited new cell lines from being harvested from embryos created by fertility clinics worldwide.

The California bill would allow both adult and embryonic stem cell research.

Private biotechnology research facilities could fund their own research without regard for the federal ban.

Organizations like the “Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research” (CAMR) which the late Christopher Reeve helped found, have worked to promote embryonic stem cell research and support all efforts at the national and state levels.

According to the group, there are not enough stem-cell lines available for federal funding to proceed with at full pace, and turn research into cures.

As the bill notes, embryonic and adult stem-cell research is not currently prohibited in California. But the issue at both the state and federal levels is public funding.

The bill would create and fund the “California Institute For Regenerative Medicine” to disburse funds in the form of grants and loans to research facilities.

Opponents, such as “Doctors, Patients & Taxpayers For Fiscal Responsibility,” oppose the bill for financial and ethical reasons.

The group’s website links to articles opposing embryonic stem cell research, including one in National Review magazine highly critical of this type of stem cell research by Eric Cohen, an advisor on ethics to the president, who consulted on the 2001 Bush plan.

“We object to the bill largely because of the financial cost of the bond, and a lack of oversight,” said Tim Rosales, spokesman of the group. “There is no legislative oversight from those who don’t benefit financially from the funding of the program. It is without legislative review, and the governor can’t address it either.”

“Private biotechnology companies and venture capitalists who back the bill should fund it themselves if they are so sure of the merits of the research, without tapping into the public funds to subsidize the research,” Rosales said.

In their public documents, the opponents argue for adult stem-cell research where only a little success has occurred.

The group calls embryonic stem-cell research “highly speculative.”

“The primary reasons we oppose Proposition 71 are fiscal, in combination with unproven science and some really bad provisions in the measure,” said Richard Deem, researcher and specialist at the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “The most egregious part of the measure is a failure to fund all manner of stem-cell research.”

But according to the bill, it will fund both types of stem-cell research.

“The proponents of Proposition 71 would like you to think that little (or) no research has been done using embryonic stem cells,” Deem said. “The reality is that mouse embryonic stem-cell studies have been going on since 1981. This embryonic stem-cell research has been plagued by problems.”

According to literature by the National Institutes of Health, human embryonic stem-cell research has only been underway since 1998, and scientists are still intensively studying the basics of stem-cell properties.

Deem said everything that can be done with embryonic stem cells, can be done with adult-derived stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood, without destroying embryos.

But proponents of embryonic stem-cell research say embryos are destroyed by fertility clinics that create them anyway, and according to the bill, fertility clinics are where the researchers will obtain embryos for the program.

“There were no federal funds expended in 2000 for research on human embryonic stem cells,” said Don Ralbosky, public liaison for NIH.

“The President’s policy was announced (in) August 2001, and NIH funded its first HESC grant in the spring of 2002. Fiscal Year 2004 figures (are) not yet available.”

As the California bill states, it seeks to fund new areas of research, particularly embryonic lines, which are not currently funded in order not to duplicate or supplant existing funding.