President Bush may have unwittingly done the stem cell research community a big favor in 2001 when he outlawed federal funding for all but a very limited category of work in the field.
For all that scientists bemoan Bush's ideologically inspired hobbling of a highly promising biomedical discipline, stem cell research has since acquired a gratifyingly high profile. Nancy Reagan and Ron Reagan Jr., believing that the new science might alleviate the Alzheimer's disease that afflicted Ronald Reagan in his last years, have urged Bush to reverse himself. Sen. John F. Kerry also has supported lifting the restrictions.
And now, here comes Proposition 71.
Scheduled for November's state ballot, Proposition 71 calls for a $3-billion bond to finance stem cell research in California. The initiative has been endorsed by business lobbies, medical associations and political leaders (mostly Democrats) who see California becoming the world's stem cell capital, with all that means in new business, employment and prestige.
"There's the possibility of putting California in the front ranks of biotechnology," says Treasurer Phil Angelides, who with Controller Steve Westly is the measure's biggest Democratic fan. "It's a risk worth taking."
But even if you accept that stem cell research may someday alleviate ailments such as diabetes and Lou Gehrig's disease, there's cause to wonder whether Proposition 71's sponsors aren't overselling the state of knowledge in the field -- and understating the proposal's cost.
It may be hard for voters to fully grasp the vastness of this financial commitment. No research program approaching this scale has ever been mounted by any state. The effort, elephantine even by California standards, would allocate nearly twice as much money to one scientific field as the University of California has spent on all its research facilities over the last 25 years. It would dwarf the California Breast Cancer Research Program, the largest state-sponsored research effort in the nation, which has granted scientists a comparatively paltry total of $150 million since 1994.
Proposition 71's supporters contend that the program is appropriately sized, given the breadth of the undertaking.
"We're dealing with 70 different diseases, not one," says Robert Klein II, the Northern California real estate developer who is the measure's driving force.
