CGS-authored
After nearly an entire morning of sometimes heated debate the other day, the board overseeing California's $3 billion stem cell research institute took action. It asked the organization's president to draw up a plan for how to draw up a strategic plan.
That is the way it has been going lately for the state's closely watched foray into the frontiers of medical science. More than a year after 59 percent of Californians approved an ambitious program to harness human embryonic stem cells to treat diseases, not a single dollar has yet been spent on research.
Instead, the effort has been hobbled by litigation that has kept the project from raising money. It has been second-guessed by public interest groups and legislators. And it has been consumed by the bureaucratic minutiae required to set up rules for administering grants. While much progress has been made, the delays and sheer magnitude of the work involved have frustrated even some of the project's champions.
"I liken it to the Iraq thinking - we won the war and didn't know what to do afterward,"...
That is the way it has been going lately for the state's closely watched foray into the frontiers of medical science. More than a year after 59 percent of Californians approved an ambitious program to harness human embryonic stem cells to treat diseases, not a single dollar has yet been spent on research.
Instead, the effort has been hobbled by litigation that has kept the project from raising money. It has been second-guessed by public interest groups and legislators. And it has been consumed by the bureaucratic minutiae required to set up rules for administering grants. While much progress has been made, the delays and sheer magnitude of the work involved have frustrated even some of the project's champions.
"I liken it to the Iraq thinking - we won the war and didn't know what to do afterward,"...