Sep 9, 2018 07:15 PM
https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/st.../politics/
EXCERPT: It was an extraordinary political proposal: Approve a $3 billion bond measure to fund the cutting-edge science of stem cell therapy, and soon some of the world’s cruelest diseases and most disabling injuries could be eradicated. The 2004 measure was Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. The campaign to pass it was led by a Palo Alto real estate developer whose son suffered from an incurable illness that he believed stem cells, the keystones of human biology, could heal. Other supporters included preeminent scientists, Hollywood celebrities, business leaders and elite investors.
[...] The need was urgent, they said. Federal restrictions had recently been imposed on funding research involving human embryonic stem cells, then the most auspicious field of study. Among the campaign’s promises: Nearly half of all families in California could benefit from stem cell treatments Prop. 71 would help create. One study it commissioned found that new, life-changing therapies could emerge in just a few years. And Prop. 71 would pay off financially, the campaign claimed, creating thousands of jobs and potentially returning the state's investment more than seven times over. "How many chances in a lifetime do you have to impact human suffering in a really fundamental way, including possibly even in your own family?" Robert Klein, the campaign leader, would say shortly after the vote.
In November 2004, Prop. 71 passed with nearly 60 percent approval. It created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM, an agency tasked with administering the $3 billion and making the campaign’s lofty visions a reality. Fourteen years later, the money voters approved is nearly gone, and supporters of CIRM and the research it funds are preparing to ask the public for another $5 billion in 2020. This time, taxpayers will want to know: Has California’s initial bet on stem cell science paid off?
CIRM can take credit for some notable progress.[...But not...] a single federally approved therapy has resulted from CIRM-funded science. The predicted financial windfall has not materialized. The bulk of CIRM grants have gone to basic research, training programs and building new laboratories, not to clinical trials testing the kinds of potential cures and therapies the billions of dollars were supposed to deliver.
Not a single federally approved therapy has resulted from CIRM-funded science. The predicted financial windfall has not materialized. The bulk of CIRM grants have gone to basic research, training programs and building new laboratories, not to clinical trials testing the kinds of potential cures and therapies the billions of dollars were supposed to deliver. [...] Instead, a thriving, for-profit industry of clinics offering dubious stem cell therapies based on half-baked science has sprung up, defying attempts at government regulation and requests from scientists to proceed cautiously.
Now, as CIRM supporters prepare to approach voters again, some say its achievements shouldn’t be measured only against the claims made by the campaign that created it....
MORE: https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/st.../politics/
EXCERPT: It was an extraordinary political proposal: Approve a $3 billion bond measure to fund the cutting-edge science of stem cell therapy, and soon some of the world’s cruelest diseases and most disabling injuries could be eradicated. The 2004 measure was Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. The campaign to pass it was led by a Palo Alto real estate developer whose son suffered from an incurable illness that he believed stem cells, the keystones of human biology, could heal. Other supporters included preeminent scientists, Hollywood celebrities, business leaders and elite investors.
[...] The need was urgent, they said. Federal restrictions had recently been imposed on funding research involving human embryonic stem cells, then the most auspicious field of study. Among the campaign’s promises: Nearly half of all families in California could benefit from stem cell treatments Prop. 71 would help create. One study it commissioned found that new, life-changing therapies could emerge in just a few years. And Prop. 71 would pay off financially, the campaign claimed, creating thousands of jobs and potentially returning the state's investment more than seven times over. "How many chances in a lifetime do you have to impact human suffering in a really fundamental way, including possibly even in your own family?" Robert Klein, the campaign leader, would say shortly after the vote.
In November 2004, Prop. 71 passed with nearly 60 percent approval. It created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM, an agency tasked with administering the $3 billion and making the campaign’s lofty visions a reality. Fourteen years later, the money voters approved is nearly gone, and supporters of CIRM and the research it funds are preparing to ask the public for another $5 billion in 2020. This time, taxpayers will want to know: Has California’s initial bet on stem cell science paid off?
CIRM can take credit for some notable progress.[...But not...] a single federally approved therapy has resulted from CIRM-funded science. The predicted financial windfall has not materialized. The bulk of CIRM grants have gone to basic research, training programs and building new laboratories, not to clinical trials testing the kinds of potential cures and therapies the billions of dollars were supposed to deliver.
Not a single federally approved therapy has resulted from CIRM-funded science. The predicted financial windfall has not materialized. The bulk of CIRM grants have gone to basic research, training programs and building new laboratories, not to clinical trials testing the kinds of potential cures and therapies the billions of dollars were supposed to deliver. [...] Instead, a thriving, for-profit industry of clinics offering dubious stem cell therapies based on half-baked science has sprung up, defying attempts at government regulation and requests from scientists to proceed cautiously.
Now, as CIRM supporters prepare to approach voters again, some say its achievements shouldn’t be measured only against the claims made by the campaign that created it....
MORE: https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/st.../politics/