Editorial: Stem-cell politics

THE TRAGIC RISE and fall of veterinarian Hwang Woo Suk, the South Korean stem-cell researcher who was found to have fabricated his purported breakthroughs in stem-cell science (except for the cloning of the Afghan hound puppy Snuppy), offers California a cautionary tale. If legal cases blocking Proposition 71 bond funds are resolved, California taxpayers will be funding embryonic stem-cell research where expectations of cures are high and a lucrative new life-science industry is promised.

What is to prevent similar fraud and ethical lapses from happening here in California, where voters agreed to spend $3 billion on stem-cell research?

"Scientists," responded Zach Hall, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the funding entity created by Prop. 71. Warning that every industry has the potential for an Enron, Hall touted the American system of peer review as the best way to expose rogue scientists and bad science and to keep research-funding decisions apart from undue political, religious or geographic influences. "What will not stop this from happening is government oversight," he said.

In a world of "pure" science, maybe. But stem-cell...