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California stem cell research goes forward as judge rejects lawsuits
Posted 4/23/2006 1:46 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Subscribe to stories like this



By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
Seventeen months and two lawsuits after Californians voted to fund a pioneering $3 billion stem cell research agency, a state judge has ruled lawsuits challenging the agency have no merit.
However lawyers for the opposing groups are expected to appeal. A final answer isn't likely for another year and a half.

Although the stem cell agency had been stymied for over a year, it did finally award its first grants two weeks ago, for 169 research fellowships in human stem cell work at 16 different California research institutions using $12 million in bonds backed by philanthropic organizations.

"Stem cell research in California has officially begun," Klein said. "We will win in this fight against a small and politically motivated minority, step by step. They will not keep medical research from improving the lives of millions of people."

Proposition 71 created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Supported by 59% of voters in 2004, it would fund $250 million in stem cell research in the state annually over twelve years.

"California is the only state that has the capacity to do a substitute national program," says Robert Klein, chairman of the agency's board. "California has 50% of all the biotech capacity in the United States and considered as a nation, it has more biotech research capacity than any other nation in the world."

The voter-approved proposition created a way for the state to fund research on human embryonic stem cells. National funding is not available because of a policy put in place by President Bush in 2001.

The president and others oppose work on human stem cells because creating the cells requires the destruction of very early stage human embryos.

David Llewellyn, a lawyer who represents the anti-abortion group California Family Bioethics Council, believes Proposition 71 violates state laws against proposing two subjects on a single ballot measure. Llewellyn's client and the taxpayer group People's Advocate also argued in their combined lawsuits that the stem cell institute wasn't a proper state agency because its finances are controlled by a 29-member board called the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee that isn't accountable to any branch of state government.

But Friday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Bonnie Lewman Sabraw issued a long-awaited ruling saying the agency was clearly under state control and was constitutional.

Contributing: Associated Press

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Posted 4/23/2006 1:46 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print |