An initiative that would give California’s stem cell agency $5.5 billion has qualified for the November ballot, state election officials confirmed Monday.
The background: The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine — the state’s one-of-a-kind stem cell agency —was created with $3 billion from a 2004 initiative, but it has been running out of money. CIRM is expected to begin closing its doors later this year if the agency fails to receive additional funding.
Proponents have argued the agency needs more time to develop stem cell therapies to treat such devastating conditions as multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease and spinal cord injuries.
Objections: CIRM has received criticism for failing to fund any stem cell treatments that are available for widespread use. Research conducted by the agency has led to two therapies approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but those are considered more conventional blood cancer treatments as opposed to stem cell therapies. Critics have questioned whether taxpayers should continue to foot the bill to fund the agency’s work.
What’s next: Voters are expected to decide Nov. 3 whether to continue funding the agency. Nearly 60 percent of voters approved the plan to create and fund the agency 16 years ago. But the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis pose a challenging environment for ballot measures as voters must weigh competing public priorities.
Full story at Politico.com.
For those of you looking for Church teaching on stem cell research and use, you can go to the US Bishops Conference website and read an article by Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk at
http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/stem-cell-research/upload/The-Ethics-of-Stem-Cell-Research.pdf
For those of you interested in his expertise, Fr. Pacholczyk has degrees in philosophy, biochemistry, molecular cell biology, and chemistry. He later earned a PhD in neuroscience from Yale University, where he focused on cloning genes for neurotransmitter transporters which are expressed in the brain. After working several years as a molecular biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, he studied for five years in Rome at both the Gregorian University and the Lateran University, where he did advanced work in dogmatic theology and bioethics. Bottom line: he knows what he’s talking about.
There is not a single effective stem cell treatment. Bone marrow transplants are old. California stem cell Institute is an electoral scam used to elect President Obama, now Biden.
To be clear, there is not a single effective EMBRYONIC stem cell treatment, one using “material” taken from an aborted preborn baby. And, yes, the California stem cell institute has been an evil scam since its beginning.
Fr. PhacoIczyk’s website can be trusted. I refused to sign the referendum to get this on the ballot and told the young man who was trying to get signatures why. He said that he was told it did not use unethical means, so either he was lying or they lied to him.
I know a girl who was helped by her own stem cells, which is an ethical means. It was done at Duke University using her own stems. If you have any conscience at all, do not vote for this bill. At least one Japanese scientist has made great strides with ethical stem cell research.
let’s see just how stupid CA voters are
Fool Me TWICE ???
CIRM does not, of course, work on an ethical basis. But that aside, if it had produced useful therapies it would have many people lining up to buy stock in it.
That it is still hat in hand awaiting further taxpayer help, and at an enormous financial cost, should be the clearest sign that even the pro-abortion voters should scrap this self-serving agency now.
Good posts, Deacon Craig. Just to emphasize, EMBRYONIC stem cells have not cured one disease. In fact, it can cause teratomas.
But, NON-EMBRONIC stem cells have cured many diseases. Some examples of cell sources: skin, amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood.
Fr. Tad is amazing and you can google his name and read many papers he has authored. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, he is soft spoken but very clear in his presentations.
By the way Sonafi Pasteur is the only laboratory that I know of that is using ethical means to find a COVID 19 vaccine.
There are other companies developing ethical vaccines as well. Go to the National Catholic Bioethics Center website and you can find a list.
So is it wrong to heal someone or save his life with an “unethical” vaccine? Should people conceived through IVF not have been born because they were conceived “unethically”? What should we do with people who have been born through IVF? Certainly not get rid of them. So why get rid of an “unethically made” vaccine if we don’t get rid of “unethically made” people?
Kevin, in answer to your questions, a child has infinite worth and human dignity, even if conceived as a result of rape (or IVF). That does not reduce at all the evil of rape or somehow make it prolife. Human persons are made in the image of God and should never be discarded. Would you be okay with a vaccine developed if the “materials” used were taken from a living prisoner in China or from a person of a race deemed less valuable who was intentionally killed? I’m almost certain you would not.
So, why would you, it seems, maybe be okay with a preborn baby being intentionally killed, provided the abortionist procured vaccine research “material” in the process?
Once the vaccine exists, the moral question of its development is moot. As the deacon said, human beings have inherent worth and dignity, so if someone can be saved using a vaccine of questionable origin, you use the vaccine to save the person’s life. Period. The alternative is you condemn an innocent person to die when you could save that person using an existing medicine. How would that be moral?
Corey, would you take a vaccine if it was made using “material” taken from a black man lynched by the KKK years ago?
I would not take such a vaccine.
In both cases, the person is already dead, but I will not be complicit in either such evil act.
To use such for my benefit (or profit) is unethical.
That’s why bishops and many others are urging the development of vaccines not resulting from the intentional death of innocents.
I recommend you check out the National Catholic Bioethics Center for more information on this. Or, see Bishop Joseph Strickland’s statement.
There is nothing “questionable” about killing a preborn baby for medical research.