Embryonic
Stem Cell Research (part I): A Cash Crop?
Advocates for human embryonic stem cell research (ESCR)
have long claimed it has the potential to cure everything from
cancer to Alzheimer's disease. But ESCR has also been stymied
by a collection of federal funding restrictions based on the
ethical and political questions surrounding such scientific
inquiry, leaving the field long on promise and short on
results. All that could dramatically change this year as
CALIFORNIA and NEW JERSEY lead a new state-level push to
sidestep federal funding limitations on ESCR by dedicating
significant amounts of public money toward this controversial
research.
Although 14 states are currently debating some form of stem
cell policy, only New Jersey and California have legalized
ESCR, which entails harvesting cells from human embryos left
over from the in-vitro fertilization process in hopes of those
cells being transformed into other kinds of cell tissue. This
differs from adult and human blood (umbilical) cord stem cell
study because, in theory, the embryos, which would normally be
discarded, yield unique cells which can adapt to any kind of
body tissue and thus be used to replace damaged cells. Many --
but far from all -- researchers believe this could lead
to cures for any number of degenerative diseases and spinal
cord injuries.
But many religious leaders, including Pope John Paul II,
have spoken out against ESCR. They contend that embryos are a
human life that should never be used as a scientific tool, no
matter what the reason. Several have also voiced concern that
ESCR will lead to human cloning. Others oppose ESCR on
financial grounds, saying it is simply too expensive and has
yet to yield any real medical breakthroughs. President George
W. Bush tried to placate both sides in 2001 when he restricted
new federal funding to only umbilical cord, placenta and adult
stem cell study, and limited any publicly funded research on
embryonic cells to only the 78 lines currently in existence.
Although not a ban on ESCR, Bush's decision put a distinct
crimp in its funding and left it to individual states to
decide for themselves if they wanted to pursue the matter
further.
New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey (D) struck first, on May
12 of this year allocating $6.5 million from the 2005 state
budget to fund the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey.
McGreevey authorized a total of $50 million over the next five
years to spur the facility, which would be a joint venture
between Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey. McGreevey also promised to deliver at
a future date another $3.5 million in private funds to augment
the plan. He later upped the ante by including various other
grants and investments from the two medical institutions,
bringing the state's initial planned investment this year to
$11.5 million, which lawmakers approved June 30.
California followed New Jersey's lead two weeks later by
qualifying Proposition 71, a November ballot measure asking
voters to endorse the California Stem Cell Research and Cures
Initiative, a $3 billion plan that would, among other things,
disperse an average of $295 million in grants over 10 years to
fund ESCR at state universities and advanced medical research
facilities. The money would come from the sale of general
obligation bonds and be backed by the cash-strapped state's
general fund. The act would also embed the right to conduct
ESCR into the state constitution.
While advancing medical science is one
goal, there is also a financial incentive for each state to
use public funds to build state-of-the-art ESCR centers. In
his announcement, McGreevey specifically noted that the
state's biotech industry generates $1 billion annually, and
that such research facilities "will augment the presence
of our industry leaders, attract new companies to a critical
sector of our state's economy and promote a forward-looking
agenda to develop new medicines and therapies."
"The economics of this was clearly a
part of our thinking," says McGreevey spokesperson Micah
Rasmussen. "New Jersey has a strong economy in part
because of its research and pharmaceutical industry. A stem
cell research center is a natural fit."
Which means that, successful in finding
cures or not, ESCR is big business. McGreevey also says he
expects New Jersey's $11.5 million in seed money to attract
more than $20 million in additional public and private funding
over the next five years.
Californians for Stem Cell Research and
Cures, the group who gathered the signatures for the
California initiative, also sees the growth of ESCR as a
financial windfall for the state. The group sponsored a report
by a Stanford University group that estimates the initiative
will generate $70 million in new tax revenue in its first five
years, a figure far in excess of the $56 million in debt
service they project to be incurred from the sale of state
bonds over that time.
Such numbers have caught the eye of the
state's money managers, including California Controller Steve
Westly (D) and Treasurer Phil Angelides (D). Although both
have been careful to praise ESCR's medical potential, each
also cites the fiscal potential of having a cutting edge stem
cell research program in the state. Angelides called the
measure a "win-win for California, funding research into
debilitating diseases while investing into the California
economy to create thousands of new jobs." Westly said
that if the measure does result in research that leads to
cures for ailments like cancer, it could eventually result in
a substantial reduction in the state's $118 billion annual
health care costs and could also "help generate new state
revenues from patents and royalties."
Not all the numbers are so rosy. The state
Legislative Analysts' Office says the total cost of the
principal and interest on the bonds over the 30-year payback
period would total $6 billion. And while the analysis from
Californians for Stem Cell Research and Cures shows
anticipated tax revenues superceding interest on the bonds in
the first five years, it also indicates future revenues would
only cover 14% of bond debt interest after that, leaving the
general fund to support the rest.
Some California medical professionals say
those numbers are not acceptable. Dr. H. Rex Greene, an
oncologist and medical director for the Dorothy E. Schneider
Cancer Center in San Mateo, says ESCR is too unproven to risk
adding billions more in bond debt so soon after the state was
forced to sell $15 billion in bonds in order to restructure
its enormous budget deficit.
"I am in favor of stem cell research,
but anyone speaking in favor of this initiative must not have
read it," says Greene, who is a spokesperson for a group
of medical professionals called Doctors, Patients and
Taxpayers for Fiscal Responsibility that is fighting
Proposition 71. "This bond measure will add up to $6
billion in taxpayer indebtedness at a time when our healthcare
infrastructure, among many other things, is in serious
trouble."
Greene says it will be decades before any
real medicines from ESCR could be on the market, and that in
the meantime it will be researchers who benefit the most.
"The people behind this proposal are
presuming that [ESCR] is the highest priority of taxpayers to
put all of this money into what is really a tiny sliver of the
spectrum of stem cell research," Greene says. He also
says it is telling that both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R)
and former First Lady Nancy Reagan, strong proponents of stem
cell research, have not yet come out in support of Proposition
71.
Proposition 71's backers, however, are not
deterred by such criticism.
"California is the only state that can
feasiblely do something this big," says Fiona Hutton,
spokesperson for Californians for Stem Cell Research and
Cures. "No state is as poised to take on this issue as we
are."
That might be necessary, as Rasmussen has
made it clear that "It is definitely part of [Gov.
McGreevey's] thinking to draw the top scientists to New
Jersey," Rasmussen says.
Those words are encouraging to Dr. Wise
Young, Founding Director for the W.M. Keck Center for
Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University and one of
the two men tabbed to run the state's planned ESCR center.
Young notes that after McGreevey authorized the center's
funding, research facilities at Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley
all announced plans to begin or enhance their own stem cell
programs.
"The number of scientists in the world
who actually have the knowledge and training in this field is
very, very small," he says. "We are also not just
competing with other facilities here in the United States.
There is great competition for scientific minds from England,
Australia and Asia. If we are going to keep this in New
Jersey, and in the U.S. for that matter, we need to have this
kind of facility."
That kind of competitive urgency rankles
Greene, who argues that states have far more pressing needs
than funding ESCR with public money.
"California has 7 million uninsured
people, and yet these guys have the unmitigated gall to want
to put $6 billion more in debt on the taxpayers," he
says. "If that's how states are going to address this,
then maybe the ultimate decision [on ESCR] should not be at
the state level."