Posted on 12/10/2005 11:30:50 AM PST by neverdem
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 9 - After nearly an entire morning of sometimes heated debate the other day, the board overseeing California's $3 billion stem cell research institute took action. It asked the organization's president to draw up a plan for how to draw up a strategic plan.
That is the way it has been going lately for the state's closely watched foray into the frontiers of medical science. More than a year after 59 percent of Californians approved an ambitious program to harness human embryonic stem cells to treat diseases, not a single dollar has yet been spent on research.
Instead, the effort has been hobbled by litigation that has kept the project from raising money. It has been second-guessed by public interest groups and legislators. And it has been consumed by the bureaucratic minutiae required to set up rules for administering grants. While much progress has been made, the delays and sheer magnitude of the work involved have frustrated even some of the project's champions.
"I liken it to the Iraq thinking - we won the war and didn't know what to do afterward," said Paul Berg, a Nobel laureate from Stanford University who fills in on the institute's board when Stanford's medical school dean cannot attend.
What happens in California matters to the nation because the $3 billion to be spent on mainly embryonic stem cell research - $300 million annually for 10 years - is expected to dwarf funding from the federal government and...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping
They're trying to get someone rich to loan them the money first to be able to give out some dough before all the legal challnges are settled. They are of course assuming the settlements will be in their favor and will be able to pay back the rich benefactor when the tax dollars are freed for them to use.
Sounds just like Meathead's tobacco tax that passed some years ago. All it's resulted in is meetings, travel expenses, and big salaries. All that "education" and "prevention" that was supposed to happen ... well, it didn't. Rob apparently saw this coming, since in his initiative he pretty much made the whole program unaccountable to outside authority. Now he's qualified a pre-school program for the ballot. I imagine it'll be about as efficiently run as the stem-cell and anti-tobacco programs.
Great. Draw up a plan showing how to draw up a plan. It's doomed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.