Letter on stem cells didn’t tell whole story

Wisconsin State Journal, Letter to the editor

To support his argument that non-embryonic stem cell research is the stem cell of choice when measured by the percent of allocated funding grants, a recent writer referred to the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, and noted that it recently approved funding for 19 grants worth $67 million with only five going to human embryonic stem cell research.

We were not told, however what proportion of the total funding went to non-embryonic or embryonic funding. Nor did the reader indicate that CIRM was conceived in 2005 by an overwhelming majority of California taxpayers in their opposition to President George Bush’s restriction on embryonic stem cell research.

Also CIRM has already allocated one of its $3 billion loan initiatives for embryonic stem cell research, much of which has already come back to California in private matching funds.

A study authored by Aaron Levine of Georgia Institute of Technology provides detailed information about stem cell research grants handed out by six states including California between December 2005 and December 2009. His findings detail that most human embryonic stem cell research conducted in the United States is funded by states, not the federal government. The share of stem cell funding given for embryonic stem cell research varied widely, from 97 percent in Connecticut to only 21 percent in New York, for example.

For more info go to stemcellaction.org.
-William R. Benedict, Madison