Letter from CGS to members of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's Independent Citizens Oversight Committee

Dear Members of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee:

The California public has given you the responsibility to oversee an enormous undertaking of great potential: the largest state-funded research program in U.S. history. The Center for Genetics and Society supports the public funding of embryonic stem cell research but is concerned that the new California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is off to a stumbling start with regard to public transparency and accountability. Although these are not due to explicit decisions by your committee, you are in a position to remedy them.

There are three particularly troubling areas of concern.

Conflict of interest regulations. This week the National Institutes of Health - in many ways a federal analogy to your own enterprise - announced that it is significantly strengthening its regulations to curtail conflicts of interest. This highlights a growing awareness that the conduct and oversight of biomedical research requires strict protections. Yet the ICOC is failing to make this a priority. Although it is mandated to adopt standards "initially based" on those of the NIH for its employees and...