Stem Cell Research: For & Against

Stem Cell Research. Funding. Bonds. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute.

• Establishes “California Institute for Regenerative Medicine” to regulate stem cell research and provide funding, through grants and loans, for such research and research facilities.
• Establishes constitutional right to conduct stem cell research; prohibits Institute’s funding of human reproductive cloning research.
• Establishes oversight committee to govern Institute.
• Provides General Fund loan up to $3 million for Institute’s initial administration/implementation costs.
• Authorizes issuance of general obligation bonds to finance Institute activities up to $3 billion subject to annual limit of $350 million.
• Appropriates monies from General Fund to pay for bonds.

Summary of Legislative Analyst’s Estimate of Net State and Local Government Fiscal Impact:

• State cost of about $6 billion over 30 years to pay off both the principal ($3 billion) and interest ($3 billion) on the bonds. Payments averaging about $200 million per year.
• Unknown potential state and local revenue gains and cost savings to the extent that the research projects funded by this measure result in additional economic activity and reduced public health care costs.

PROPOSITION 71 IS ABOUT CURING DISEASES AND SAVING LIVES

Stem cells are unique cells that generate healthy new cells, tissues and organs. Medical researchers believe stem cell research could lead to treatments and cures for many diseases and injuries, including:

Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and lung diseases, spinal injuries.

In fact, medical problems that could benefits from stem cell research affect 128 million Americans – including a child or adult in nearly half of all California families.

71 CLOSES THE RESEARCH GAP

Unfortunately, political squabbling has severely limited funding for the most promising areas of stem cell research.

Meanwhile, millions of people are suffering and dying.

Prop. 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, is an affordable solution that closes the research gap, so new treatments and cures can be found.

That’s why a YES vote on 71 is endorsed by a broad coalition that includes OVER 20 NOBEL PRIZE WINNING SCIENTISTS, doctors, nurses, Democrats, Republicans, and dozens of organization, including:

• Alzheimer’s Association, California Council • American Nurses Association of California • California Medical Association (representing 35,000 doctors) • Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation • Chrisopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation • Cystic Fibrosis Research, Inc. • Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation • Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation • Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research • Prostate Cancer Foundation • Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of California

71 PROTECTS CALIFORNIA’S TAXPAYERS AND BUDGET.

Prop. 71 doesn’t create or increase any taxes.

It authorizes tax-free state bonds that will provide a maximum of $350 million per year over ten years to support stem cell research at California universities, medical schools, hospitals, and research facilities

.•These bonds are self-financing during the first five years, so there’s no cost to the State’s General Fund during this period of economic recovery.

•By making California a leader in stem cell research and giving our State an opportunity to share in royalties from the research, 71 will generate thousand of new jobs and millions in new state revenues.

That’s why California’s Chief Financial Officers, State Controller Steve Westly, and State Treasurer Phil Angelides, endorse Prop. 71.

STRICT FINANCIAL AND ETHICAL CONTROLS.

Research grants will be allocated by an Independent Citizen’s Oversight Committee, guided by medical experts, representatives of disease groups, and financial experts—and subject to independent audit, public hearings, and annual public reports.

Prop. 71 also prohibits any funding for cloning to create babies, reinforcing existing state law banning human reproductive cloning. It’s totally focused on finding medical cures.

71 COULD REDUCE HEALTH CARE COSTS BY BILLIONS.

California has the nation’s highest total health care spending costs—over $110 billion annually. A huge share of those costs is caused by diseases that could be treated or cured with stem cell therapies.

• If Prop. 71 leads to cures that reduce our health care costs by only 1%, it will pay for itself—and it could cut healthcare costs by tens of billions of dollars in future decades.

For more information visit www.Yeson71.com
Vote YES on 71—IT COULD SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMEONE YOU LOVE

ALAN D. CHERRINGTON, PH.D., President
American Diabetes Association

CAROLYN ALDIGE, President
National Coalition for Cancer Research (NCCR)

JOAN SAMUELSON, President
Parkinson’s Action Network

Stem Cell Research? YES! Human Embryo Cloning? NO

Here are just some of the many problems with Proposition 71:

**It specifically supports “embryo cloning” research—also called “somatic cell nuclear transfer”—which poses risks to women and unique ethical problems. To provide scientists with eggs for embryo cloning, at least initially, thousands of women may be subjected to the substantial risk of high dose hormones and egg extraction procedures just for the purposes of research. In addition, the perfection of embryo cloning technology—even if initially for medical therapies only—will increase the likelihood that human clones will be produced.

**Why privilege this research over other important research and medical needs, especially given the limits on how much California can invest? Why not issue bonds for programs that ALREADY have proven their cost effectiveness? Embryo stem cell research in nonhuman animals has produced only limited results. More compelling evidence of its efficacy should be required before a large commitment of public resources to study it in humans.

** Proponents are manipulating those seeking cures, building false hopes with exaggerated claims and creating a costly program without adequate oversight or accountability.

Stem cell research should be supported, but not this way. And don’t be fooled by those who say the opponents of Proposition 71 are all opposed to abortion and embryo stem cell research. Many of us are pro-choice, do not oppose all embryo stem cell research, and still oppose this initiative.

Vote “No” on Proposition 71

JUDY NORSIGIAN, Executive Director
Our Bodies Ourselves

FRANCINE COEYTAUX, Founder
Pacific Institute for Women’s Health

TINA STEVENS, Ph.D., Author
Bioethics in America: Origins and Cultural Politics

WE SUPPORT STEM CELL RESEARCH, NOT CORPORATE WELFARE

It’s wrong to launch a costly new state bureaucracy when vital programs for health, education, and police and fire services are being cut. We cannot afford to pile another $3 billion in bonded debt on top of a state budget teetering on the edge of financial ruin.

General Fund bond debt will grow from $33 billion on May 1, 2004, to a Legislative Accounting Office projection of $50.75 billion in debt by June 30, 2005—a staggering 54% increase in just 14 months!

WHO BENEFITS?

Backers will cynically use images of suffering children and people with disabilities in their commercials, but pharmaceutical company executives and venture capitalists contributed $2.6 million to put this measure on the ballot. By getting taxpayers to fund their corporate research, they stand to make billions with little risk.

NO ACCOUNTABILITY

And who will oversee how this money is spent? According to the fine print, the proponents give themselves power to exempt their “Institute for Regenerative Medicine” from aspects of our California “open meeting” law (specifically passed to stop this kind of backroom deal-making).

Why do proponents want to keep what they are doing a secret? If we’re being asked to pay for this research, then it should be freely available to all, not just to those who will be “awarded” special contracts by the “Institute.” The initiative also grants the “Institute” power to rewrite California’s medical informed consent safeguards.

Most importantly, the fine print specifically prohibits the Governor and Legislature from exercising oversight and control over how this money is spent—or misspent. Even if the state teeters on the brink of financial ruin, our elected representatives will still have to borrow and spend this money, because the proponents are putting this money grab into our Constitution.

BAD MEDICINE

Opponents of this boondoggle include liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, medical professionals and stem cell researchers. We all strongly support Stem Cell Research, but oppose this blatant taxpayer rip-off that lines the pockets of a few large corporations.

If there was any doubt about the true motives of the corporate promoters of this bond debt, one need only look at what it doesn’t fund. The fine print does not initially fund adult and cord blood stem cell research. Adult and cord blood stem cell research has already produced more than 74 major medical breakthrough, but this measure excludes support for these proven areas of research, without a two-thirds vote of the Institute’s “working group”.

Consider just one example: Cord blood stem cells are being used to treat sickle cell anemia with a staggering success rate of 90%. That’s real progress, helping real people, but it may not receive one penny from this initiative.

Join with millions of your fellow citizens in demanding an end to “corporate welfare” and bonded debt. This is no time to spend billions we don’t have on a self-serving sham.

Vote “NO” on Proposition 71. It’s not what they say it is.
www.NoOn71.com

TOM MCCLINTOCK, California State Senator

JOHN M.W. MOORLACH, C.P.A.
Orange County Treasurer

H. REX GREENE, M.D., Cancer Center Director and Bioethics Consultant

NOBEL PRIZE WINNING MEDICAL RESEARCHERS, DOCTORS, AND PATIENT GROUPS HAVE STUDIED THIS MEASURE AND URGE: YES on 71.

•Stem cell research is the most promising area of research aimed at finding breakthrough cures for currently in curable diseases and injuries affecting millions of people.

•71 is a well-designed program to find those cures.

•It’s vitally needed because stem cell research is being restricted by politics in Washington.

The claims by opponents are misleading political scare tactics.

71 SUPPORTS ALL TYPES OF STEM CELL RESEARCH—including adult and cord blood stem cell research.

71 FOCUSES ON RESEARCH BY NONPROFIT INSTITUTIONS—NOT CORPORATIONS.

•It’s specifically designed to support the type of breakthrough research conducted by universities, medical schools, hospitals and other non-profit institutions.

71 REQUIRES PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

•71 specifically says the institute overseeing the research MUST COMPLY WITH OPEN MEETING LAWS.

It requires PUBLIC HEARINGS and INDEPENDENT AUDITS reviewed by the California State Controller and an independent oversight committee.

71 PROTECTS CALIFORNIA’S BUDGET.

Prop. 71 is a good investment. Studies led by a Stanford University economist project that 71 will generate millions in new state revenues from royalties and new jobs, and that new medical treatments and cures can REDUCE CALIFORNIAS’ HEALTH CARE COSTS BY BILLIONS.

71 is endorsed by over 20 Nobel Prize winning scientists, medical groups representing over 35,000 California doctors and non-profit disease groups representing millions of suffering patients.

VOTE YES on 71—TO FIND CURES THAT WILL SAVE LIVES.

LEON TAI, MD, Director
Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center,
University of California at San Diego

PAUL BERG, PH.D., Nobel Laureate
Professor of Cancer Research
Stanford University

ROGER GUILLEMIN, M.D., Ph.D., Nobel Laureate
Distinguished Professor,
Salk Institute for Biological Studies