Sacramento Bee: "Stem cell chief's exit is long overdue"
The controversial chairman of California's $3 billion stem cell research program said this week that he will not seek another term when his current one ends at the end of 2010. Hopefully he'll keep his word. However, when he was initially appointed over four years ago, he promised to serve only three years.
The editorial board of the Sacramento Bee, the daily newspaper of the state's capitol, says that the end of the term is not soon enough:
For more than four years, this page has detailed how [Robert] Klein's all-powerful control has not been in the best interest of either taxpayers or the stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine....[H]e is precisely the wrong person to head a government science agency.The editorial also pointed out the contrast between CIRM's increased spending and the painful cuts elsewhere in the budget:
Chairing a 29-member board that is far too large and rife with conflicts of interest, Klein has operated the institute in a smothering manner, with little regard to transparency or lines of authority. Since 2005, Klein has run off talented scientists, such as former CIRM President Zach Hall. He has helped direct millions of dollars to contracts for law firms and public relations consultants - money that could have gone to science.
In the midst of a state budget crisis, the stem cell institute is an island, spending freely, accountable to no one. It's an island that Klein created and may one day sail away from.
The Bee has been calling for Klein to step down since July or November of 2007 (depending on one's interpretation). The Center for Genetics and Society has done so since our January 2006 report [PDF] on the agency.
This week, Klein offered a typical example of his leadership style in response to questions about CIRM's budget for the next fiscal year, which is a 25% increase over this year's. But Klein and CIRM are spinning this as a 3% decrease, since that's how much the current projection differs from last year's proposed budget.
One member of CIRM's governing board has publicly called this a "gross distortion." Coming in the midst of California's unprecedented fiscal meltdown, both CIRM's budget increase and the shameless attempt to mask it are egregious.
Perviously on Biopolitical Times: