Attack Of The Clones

by DemFromCT

What do you do when you despair of the Federal government playing its normal role of encouragement (with oversight) of the advancement of science through policy and funding? Why, you take things into your own hands. If you're MA, you follow CA's lead:

House and Senate leaders announced yesterday that they have reached an agreement on a bill promoting embryonic stem cell research in Massachusetts, setting the stage for the measure to become law in the coming weeks.

The lawmakers said they ironed out a final wrinkle by designating the Department of Public Health as the agency that will regulate stem cell research, but establishing checks on the agency's power.

The Senate is expected to take up the compromise today, and the House is likely to follow suit next week, once it concludes debate on the fiscal 2006 state budget. There is strong support for embryonic stem cell research, and the creation of human embryos for research, in both chambers.

Governor Mitt Romney, who supports the use of embryos left over from in vitro fertilization but not the creation of human embryos for research, often called therapeutic cloning, has suggested he will veto the bill, which allows both. But last month, both the House and Senate approved stem cell measures that allow the creation of embryos by veto-proof margins. The Senate approved its version 35-2, and the vote in the House was 117-37.

And if you're a scientist, you stop waiting for Leon Kass and other Bush stooges to act and you create your own ethical guidelines:

Citing a lack of leadership by the federal government, the National Academy of Sciences proposed ethical guidelines yesterday for research with human embryonic stem cells.

Scientists have high hopes that research with those all-purpose cells, which develop into all the various tissues of the adult body, will lead to treatments for a wide variety of diseases by enabling them to grow new organs to replace damaged ones.

But because of religious objections - human embryos shortly after fertilization are destroyed to derive the cells - Congress has long restricted federal financing of such research; President Bush has allowed it to proceed, but only with designated cells. As a result, the government has not played its usual role of promoting novel research and devising regulations accepted by all players.

The academy, a self-elected group of scientists that advises the government, recommends setting up a system of local and national committees for reviewing stem cell research. It also tackles a new set of ethical problems raised by creating organisms composed of cells from two different species, and in this case animals that include human cells.

The academy hopes its proposals, which are nonbinding, will be accepted in the private and public sectors, particularly in states like California that are creating ambitious stem cell programs. Its report is also likely to influence the debate in Congress, where some lawmakers wish to allow new human stem cell lines to be derived and other lawmakers are seeking tighter restrictions.

That private sector piece is all important, as this previous post highlights. Missouri wants to follow the leads set by the coastal states, but that puts all sorts of pressures on the theocrats to line up with business. A key split in the Republican coaltion is likely to follow in a coalition already showing fissures. Stay tuned. Stem cell research is a very popular initiative and once again the Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue. And their response?

Dr. Leon R. Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, declined through a spokeswoman to comment on the academy's guidelines.

Uh-huh. Reality getting away from you, Leon?

Comments

[Kagro X]

Exciting. Here's hoping more and more people of all stripes and everywhere begin recognizing and citing the "lack of leadership" from this administration.

I don't think anything would sting W. more, on a personal level, than to be accused of being a weak leader. That sounds like the kind of thing that would provoke him into making more mistakes. Which I like to think of as "helping him live up to his potential."

[Kelly Miller]

It is also worth noting that, in terms of academic research in medicine and biology, California and Massachusetts are probably the single two most important states.

California:
Stanford
University of California, San Francisco
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Davis
University of California, Ιrvine
USC

Massachusetts:
Harvard
MIT
Boston University
Tufts
University of Massachusetts, Worcester

The impact from these two states is far beyond "two out of fifty."

[DemFromCT]

Very true, Kelly, but there are 48 wannabes on this issue, as the MO link in the article shows.
In fact, Bush and the Rs have already lost on this issue... they just don't know it yet.

[Kagro X]

Next up: a federal bill to forbid the states from doing this; bill struck down as ridiculously unconstitutional; Dobson/DeLay axis condemns activist judges; rinse; repeat.

[richard lo cicero]

Kelly, you left off CalTech on yor list of CA research sites. Also don't forget the cluster of biotech companies in the Bay Area, Irvine, and San Diego and the Salk Institute and City of Hope as well.
By the way, another center of Biomedical research is Houston, Texas. Just thought Tom DeLay might like to know, especially when the brain drain begins to the golden state and the Athens of America.

[Blue the Wild Dog]

I suggested doing something about stem-cell research to my (Colorado) State Rep, who is the Majority Leader. Our biotech industry isn't quite the size of California or Massachusetts, but it is not negligible. There's no way we could fund anything, but it would be fun to watch the reaction of the Colorado Springs folks to a bill that would "clarify that the research is allowed and to place it in a regulatory framework that will ease ethical concerns". Maybe I'll ping her again about it.

[DemFromCT]

Hullo, Blue. Check the Missouri link in the post above (previous post highlights). CO is not so different than MO, I suspect.. the business interests will not necessarily align with the social conervatives and the majority will want to go forward.

[Blue the Wild Dog]

Thanks, DemFromCT. It seems like a perfect wedge issue.

[Meteor Blades]

You know what really pisses me off? The fact that wealthy Republicans like Bush, who used the stem-cell controversy to show the religious right that the GOP was on their side, will be among the first beneficiaries of whatever cures and preventions come out of stem cell research - since many of these will be expensive and uncovered by health insurance.

So, by backing stem cell research, we on the left are probably going to ensure that those who oppose it for political juice wind up living longer and healthier than we do. Damn.

[DemFromCT]

MB, I am confident that what ails Junior (stubbornnnrss) will prove incurable.

Kagro, any bill, even for show, to nationalize stem cell embargoes will fail. Too many people want to move forward in the senate whatever the theocrats in the House do. But let 'em try. Another issue to run on in 2006.

[Redshift]

Add Virginia to the list of states that have a stem cell research initiative. VA isn't as conservative as MO, but it's pretty conservative on a lot of issues.

Hmmm, on closer inspection, it looks like our idiot conservatives got it amended so it promotes stem cell research, but disallows funding of *embryonic* stem cell research, making it pretty much useless. I think that's instructive; in conservative states you're more likely to see conservatives adding language to make the initiatives effectively useless, rather than actually going on record voting them down.

[DemFromCT]

Redshift, some conservatives take the Mitt Romney approach. It won't fly as a compromise (see MA).

[Kagro X]

Guaranteed to fail, eh? In that case, I shall expect to see it filed with greater haste.

[claw]

How about NJ? That's where I live and I seem to remember reading something about NJ considering shelling out some $$$ for stem cell research (sorry - don't remember the details). NJ doesn't want to lose business to other states in this field.

[DemFromCT]

claw, i guess one of my points was every state is like NJ. every state is a potential center of stem cell research, every state has a university with the potential to be interested in this, and evey state is also potentially a site for biotechnology.

[Kelly Miller]

And every state knows that California and Massachusetts, the two states with the strongest bioresearch infrastructures, are moving ahead and not waiting for the feds. Every state knows that it is now or never.

[DemFromCT]

You got that right!

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