California backs stem cell effort

California voters sent a clear message in favor of embryonic stem cell research to Washington on Tuesday, backing a bond measure that supports the controversial science and perhaps triggering a research gold rush to the Golden State.

By a 59 percent to 41 percent ratio, California voters decided Tuesday to provide $3 billion over 10 years to human embryonic stem cell research - trumping a Bush administration policy that limits federal funding.

In backing Proposition 71, voters immediately made the state the world’s largest government sponsor of such research, leading to speculation that the measure would trigger a research “brain drain” from other states.

First isolated in 1998, human embryonic stem cells are the master cells that form within the first 14 days after conception, when the embryo is the size of a pinhead. These cells can turn into any tissue in the body.

Scientists hope to harness them to grow replacement tissue to treat spinal cord injuries as well as diabetes and other diseases.

The use of embryonic stem cells in research is linked to the abortion debate because, in the process of harvesting stem cells from embryos, the embryos are killed.

In an executive order three years ago, President Bush limited federal support of embryonic stem cell research to cell lines – colonies of cells grown from a single embryo - that were created before August 2001. Of those lines, 22 are available to researchers.

The California initiative creates the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which will make grants to stem cell researchers starting next year.

Last year, the federal government spent close to $25 million on stem cell research. The United Kingdom announced embryonic stem cell research grants worth about $30 million in May.

“California is going to be spending more on embryonic stem cell research than any government worldwide,” says Sean Tipton of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research.

He and others expect researchers will migrate to California to take advantage of Proposition 71’s largesse.

Harvard’s Leonard Zon, president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, says scientists can pursue such research certain that the field will be well funded.

But groups opposed to embryonic stem cell research say the vote endangers California’s ethical and financial standing.

“For the first time, Californians have voted to use their money to finance highly controversial science that intentionally destroys nascent human life and will likely create cloned embryo farms,” says Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.