Stem Sellouts
By Jesse Reynolds,
TomPaine.com
| 07. 19. 2005
Recent developments—both technical and political —have once again brought stem cell research to the front pages of newspapers across the country. Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., are the sponsors of a bill in the Senate that would largely undo President Bush’s restrictive federal funding policies. It’s already passed the House, and is scheduled for a Senate vote this month. But now conservatives are working to dilute support for it by introducing several competing bills that would fund stem cell research that does not destroy human embryos.
Progressives are inclined to react to these reports by strengthening their support of stem cell research as an effective wedge issue to split Republicans. But before we move ahead with simplistic calls for more funding and fewer restrictions, we should pay heed to troubles with California’s new stem cell research agency— and to the larger implications of biotech boosterism.
California’s Calamity
Last fall, Californians approved Proposition 71, which established the Institute for Regenerative Medicine to distribute $3 billion in stem cell research grants. Voters were swayed, with the help of a...
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...
