Embryonic Stem Cell Funding: California, Here I Come?

David P. Hamilton of the Wall Street Journal (4 November 2004, p. B1) put it best: ". . . California voters registered a strong dissent with Bush-administration policy by approving vastly expanded state funding for medical research involving embryonic stem cells." On 2 November 2004, the people of California passed the "California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act" (Proposition 71) into law by a vote of 59 percent to 41 percent. Proposition 71 provides for bonds to fund $3 billion—up to $350 million annually—for stem cell research to be regulated by a new California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Furthermore, it establishes a constitutional right in the state to conduct stem cell research and prohibits Institute funding for human reproductive cloning research (http://www.voterguide.ss. ca.gov/propositions/prop71-title.htm), in accordance with existing law. California's legislature previously had prohibited research on human reproductive cloning in September 2002. (California Senate Bill 1230).

Although significant, California's action on stem cells may be put into perspective. (1) It is not the first state to enact a law governing the use of state funds for this kind of research. In 1998, Missouri's legislature prohibited the use of state funds "for research with respect to the cloning of a human person" (Missouri Revised Statutes, Section 1.217). (2) Current federal policy, as announced by President George W. Bush on 9 August 2001, does permit the use of federal funds embryonic stem cell research, albeit only on stem cell lines existing as of that date, of which only 22 are currently available (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010809-2.html). It is noteworthy, however, that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded only $25 million for embryonic stem cell research in 2003, compared to $191 million for adult stem cell research (Newsweek, 25 October 2004, p. 47). Taken together the federal funds allocated in 2003 still fall $134 million short of the annual amount approved for use in California. (3) The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a private organization with basic biomedical research, which could include stem cell research, as its principal mission, has an endowment over $11 billion, almost four times the funding approved in California.

Now that the November 2004 elections are history and President Bush remains the nation's chief executive until January 2009, little change is expected in the executive branch's position on federal support for embryonic stem cell research. In this environment, California's vote on stem cell research in Proposition 71 has "recast the national conversation about such research" (Christian Science Monitor, 25 October 2004, p. 5). Scientists who once relied on federal funding may depart the federal arena for the greener and more permissive pastures of state or private funding.

Almost concurrent with approval of the California initiative, HHMI began, in October 2004, recruiting the 200-300 researchers for its 281 acre, $500 million Janelia Farm campus, located in Ashburn, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., and scheduled to open in 2006. Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein hailed this event as having the potential to turbocharge the Washington region—where, of course, the National Institutes of Health already are located—into "Getting Out of Biotech's Second Tier" (Washington Post, 8 September 2004, p. E1). Pearlstein's headline refers to the entrepreneurial culture in scientific research associated with Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego, among other American cities. HHMI founder and namesake Howard Hughes wanted his institute "to probe 'the genesis of life itself,'" a notion broad enough to include stem cell research (http://www.hhmi.org/about/).

In addition to leaving the federal research arena for either the public one in California or the private one, stem cell researchers may be leaving the U.S. entirely for countries, such as Great Britain, with more permissive laws on research involving embryonic stem cells (UK Attracts US Researchers, British Medical Journal, 4 August 2001, p.252). Ironically, precedent for this type of leave taking by researchers over legislation concerning human embryos dates back to the mid-1980s, when Monash University in Australia formed the private company IVF...