Stem cell transparency
AFTER A FIRST YEAR THAT veered off in too many bad directions, California’s budding stem cell agency has started 2006 on more promising footing. At its meeting earlier this month, the governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine adopted admirable ethics standards and devised a fair formula for sharing future revenue.
The institute’s ethics standards, which include requirements to inform potential egg donors of risks they face, are now higher than those recommended last year by the National Academy of Sciences. They should go a long way toward reassuring a public shaken by the scandal surrounding a South Korean stem cell researcher who faked many of his “breakthroughs” and coerced women into donating eggs.
The institute’s rules for sharing future revenue from stem cell discoveries with the state fulfill a promise implicit in Proposition 71, the $3-billion bond measure to fund embryonic stem cell research. A few members of the governing board had balked at making provisions for the poor and uninsured to receive stem cell treatments made possible by California’s investment. But the institute earlier this month established a substantial discount on therapies for the poor.
It has taken more pressure from public interest groups than it should have to set the institute on the right path. That’s probably because the governing board has no members from such groups, something the Legislature should correct once the three-year moratorium on amending Proposition 71 is over. Still, the board showed that it has learned how to listen and respond, one of its most promising steps so far.
One issue the institute still must confront is making the financial disclosures of its scientific advisors open to the public. These scientists will recommend which grant proposals should be approved, and it’s important for the public to know that the reviewers, who often have links to companies and universities, will not be enriched by the advice they give.
The agency’s leaders argue that no worthwhile scientist would stand for such disclosure. But it’s entirely reasonable -- and increasingly common -- to ask stem cell scientists to disclose their financial and research relationships. If a scientist wants to help decide how California spends $3 billion on stem cell research, he or she should be willing to take steps to assure the public that its money is being well spent.
