Frustration with the Bush administration’s shortsighted restrictions on embryonic stem cell research has found its most extreme expression in an ambitious ballot measure that will be presented to California voters in the November elections. The measure calls for the state to borrow some $3 billion in the next decade or so to finance stem cell research in the state’s medical schools and other nonprofit research institutions, with priority given to the kind of research that is now barred from receiving federal support under President Bush’s policy. The amount of money is staggering, an order of magnitude as great as what is now spent by the federal government on the limited embryonic stem cell research the president is willing to support.
Office of Strategic Communication