Bob Klein: Stem Cell Research and Cures for California

Bob Klein is the chief sponsor of the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, which is on the ballot in November.

Stem cells, derived from human fetuses, are called pluripotent because they have the potential to become any other type of cell. For this reason they hold unique promise for medical research. Stem cell research may help to treat or cure everything from cancer and heart diseases to Alzheimer's to diabetes and AIDS. Last year, the Bush administration made a controversial decision to withhold federal funding for medical research on any stem cell lines that had not already been extracted from fetuses at the time. The medical community believes this restriction will prove disabling to scientific advance, and so most stem cell research is funded either by foreign governments, states, or private organizations such as universities.

To address this funding gap, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative proposes to allocate $300 million a year from California bonds to provide funding for research on stem cells in California. Such an initiative makes sense for California. First and foremost, the scientific advances will save countless lives and will make many others more livable. Second, California spends so much on healthcare, if advances from stem cell research end up reducing costs by just 1%, the initiative will pay for itself - to say nothing of patent revenues the state could earn under the law and the stimuation it would provide to the sagging California technology sector. Third, the biotech boom is happening overseas because of U.S. restrictions on funding. This research will stimulate our economy and make up for the early advantages other countries have built up.