Other states looking to spend public money on stem cell research
By Capitol Weekly,
Capitol Weekly
| 01. 19. 2006
During the 2004 elections, supporters of California's Proposition 71 stem
cell effort said they hoped the initiative would serve as an example to
other states. As more than a dozen other states pursue their own stem cell
efforts, it appears California is in fact being used as an example--but in
some cases, it is being held as an example of what not to do.
While critics of California's stem cell agency have focused on what they see
as conflicts of interests and unfulfilled promises, observers in other
states say the far bigger problem is the sheer size and visibility of
California's program.
"A key lesson so far has been that low profile efforts seem more effective,"
said Aaron Levine, a PhD. candidate at Princeton University who has been
studying stem cell campaigns in different states. "Because Proposition 71
dealt with such large sums of money, it became a national, if not
international, issue and attracted significant opposition."
The debate also took place in the shadow of the Bush administration's
efforts to limit the scope of stem cell research, which helped...
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...