Profession
Calif. suit on funding for stem cell research headed to court
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Jan. 16, 2006
State funding of stem cell research remains mired in the courts after a California judge in November 2005 said that two lawsuits challenging Proposition 71, a $3 billion bond measure that voters passed to pay for research, could go to trial. The trial is scheduled to start Feb. 27.
While tangled in the courts, the state can not sell bonds to finance research grants. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the agency overseeing grant distribution, has had to get by on a $3 million loan from the state and a $5 million private grant. The institute is raising $50 million through private bonds so that it can begin awarding the estimated $39 million it had already promised to researchers over three years. It sold the bonds to private individual investors and foundations with the caveat that they would not be repaid if the courts say that the state cannot put $3 million toward stem cell research.
In the November opinion, Alameda Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw rejected the notion that Proposition 71 is unconstitutional, but she found that the California Family Bioethics Council, the National Tax Limitation Foundation and the People's Advocate could go forward with the portion of the lawsuit that claims there is a lack of oversight for how the money is distributed and a conflict of interest because some of the institutions applying for money are represented by CIRM board members.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/01/16/prbf0116.htm.
