Science Without Ideology: The Future of Stem Cell Research

UW-Madison Retirement Association’s Challenges Committee

Question for Dr. R. Alta Charo -
My name is William R. Benedict. I am a retired social worker. My family suffers daily with chronic cell-based diseases. As a family advocate, for the past five years I have been advocating for federal and state funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). With serious chronic diseases, my family and our grand children will very likely stand to benefit enormously from miracle cell-based therapies.

My family and I want to thank you for all you have done to help Wisconsin’s stem cell program succeed so well to this point. My family and I are indebted to you for your tireless work and support for this research. Thanks so much for taking the time to be with us this afternoon and for speaking to us about the most critical issues now facing this research.

With respect to the question of how can emerging stem cell therapies be affordable to patients or in a new national health care system, I believe I speak today for tens of millions of families with serious chronic diseases, who are of modest means and who without serious stem cell research reform will be deprived of the fruits of this research.

My question concerns the nature of this “new attitude” that is referred to along with the coming of the new Obama Administration. To what extent will this new attitude look like what we had before the George W. Bush administration?
Will science and the pharma business continue to do “business as usual” as it relates to existing intellectual property laws that result in the already exorbitantly rich pharmaceutical corporations getting richer and richer at the expense of the taxpayers and health consumers?

As a preeminent bio-ethicist, and as regarding the common interests of all, who should determine whether a government funded invention should be patented? And who should decide what manner such patents should be licensed? And finally who should profit from patent licenses and in what amounts.

Presently as you know by existing statute it’s the scientist alone and the so-called non-profit research office transfer officials who are handmaidens to the drug industry, who benefit most. While this is an issue too large to address this afternoon
would you begin this discussion today by commenting on what stem cell research issues should be left to the scientists and what issues should be addressed through the democratic process?