Editorial: Blank-check stem cells - Governor missed chance with state loan
By Sacramento Bee,
Sacramento Bee
| 07. 24. 2006
Embryonic stem cell research would seem to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Either you oppose use of embryos for medical science, supporting President Bush in his callous veto of expanded federal funding for such research, or you rally behind unfettered expenditures for regenerative medicine, with little governmental oversight over how public monies are allocated.
Actually, there is a third wave of opinion on stem cells, but you won't hear it from many politicians in this election season. The third wave supports increased spending for embryonic stem cell science, but wants safeguards to ensure that researchers stay within clear ethical lines. It wants transparency in decision-making and accountability to prevent money from being channeled inappropriately to favored researchers and biotech companies.
Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger missed an opportunity to ally himself with this third wave. A day after Bush cast his first veto to reject a stem cell bill, Schwarzenegger announced a $150 million bridge loan to California's beleaguered stem cell research institute. This agency has been prevented from dispensing $3 billion in state funds -- authorized by voters in 2004...
Related Articles
By Gregory Laub and Hannah Glaser, MedPage Today | 08.07.2025
In this MedPage Today interview, Leigh Turner, PhD, a professor of health policy and bioethics at the University of California Irvine, unpacks the growing influence of stem cell clinics and the blurred line between medicine and marketing. He explains how...
By Gina Kolata, The New York Times | 06.20.2025
A single infusion of a stem cell-based treatment may have cured 10 out of 12 people with the most severe form of type 1 diabetes. One year later, these 10 patients no longer need insulin. The other two patients need...
By Christina Jewett, The New York Times | 06.05.2025
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently declared that he wanted to expand access to experimental therapies but conceded that they could be risky or fraudulent.
In a podcast with Gary Brecka, who describes himself as a longevity expert...
By Mike Baker, The New York Times | 02.25.2025
As investigators struggled for weeks to find who might have committed the brutal stabbings of four University of Idaho students in the fall of 2022, they were focused on a key piece of evidence: DNA on a knife sheath that...
