Solution to One Prop. 71 Flaw
By Jesse Reynolds,
Los Angeles Times
| 12. 17. 2007
A Letter to the Editor
Re "Stem cell housecleaning," editorial, Dec. 12
Your editorial appropriately highlights fundamental flaws of Proposition 71, the initiative that created the state's $3-billion stem cell research agency. Its governing board is stacked with representatives of the very institutions seeking to maximize their share of the public funding pie -- an inherent conflict of interest. The latest scandal, in which a board member tried to influence a grant to his home institution, is just a symptom of the structural flaws that were built into the program. It's time for the Legislature to step in and reform it.
But that's just part of the problem. Board chair and Proposition 71 author Robert Klein has consistently worked against accountability and transparency. He has misled the public and has been dismissive of the Legislature. Through activities such as heading up his own private stem cell research lobbying group while continuing his role as board chair, he's crossed the line of appropriate behavior for a public servant. He's had three years to demonstrate otherwise. It's time for him to go.
Jesse Reynolds
Oakland
The writer...
Related Articles
By Priyanka Runwal, Chemical and Engineering News | 08.05.2024
Saritee Sanodiya, 26, has spent countless days wondering if she’ll ever live a “normal” life. Growing up, Sanodiya often missed school, frequenting the hospital for sudden, life-threatening drops in her hemoglobin levels and excruciating pain in her joints. High fever...
It’s been a busy couple of months in biopolitics, with developments in the US, UK, China, Japan, and implicitly on Mars. Time for a brief roundup.
• • •
Bioethics needs an update
The National Research Act is now 50 years old. It was signed into law on July 12, 1974, as a direct response to publicity about the 1932 “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” The Hastings Bioethics Forum celebrated its anniversary with an...
Image courtesy National Human Genome Research Institute
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to encourage effective medical advances while also ensuring that patients and research subjects are protected. This dual mandate demands tricky judgment calls that are made more difficult by outside pressures of several kinds, political, judicial, and especially commercial. This April story at Bloomberg examines one deeply troubling pattern of regulatory capture:
Americans Are Paying Billions to Take Drugs That Don’t Work
Companies are increasingly...
By Sarah Kliff and Azeen Ghorayshi, The New York Times | 07.15.2024