SACRAMENTO &emdash; Two state senators with opposite views on stem cell research forged an odd political alliance Wednesday when they introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to “reform’ the new $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which is already facing two lawsuits seeking to put it out of business.
Sens. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, and George Runner, R-Lancaster, also introduced legislation banning for three years so-called “multiple egg donations’ from women who voluntarily submit to hormone injections to “superovulate’ in the name of research. If passed, that law would effectively prevent the agency from funding human cloning projects for medical research for three years.
Runner opposed Proposition 71, which passed in November and created the institute that is to dole out $3 billion in grants supporting human embryonic stem cell research. Ortiz, on the other hand, endorsed and campaigned for the initiative.
But Ortiz has grown increasingly concerned with some of the proposition’s fine print that allows for key agency committees to conduct much of their work behind closed doors.
“There are some reasonable exceptions,” said Ortiz, indicating the vetting of individual grant applications should be done in private, for instance. “But those exceptions ought not become the general rule.”
The proposed proposition would also tighten the agency’s conflict-of-interest policies and require that any medicine developed with agency funding be made affordable for all Californians and that all financial arrangements with pharmaceutical companies ensure that the state share in drug sales.
The two said the dramatic step of introducing a proposed constitutional amendment was necessary because Proposition 71 explicitly prohibits the Legislature from amending the initiative for three years.
By Paul Elias
AP Biotechnology Writer
