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Stem cell federalism flunks in NJ? Not.

by James Fossett

One of the noteworthy things about American federalism is that one defeat is seldom decisive. What loses in one state can easily win in others where political conditions are more propitious, and the fate of any particular enterprise doesn’t rise or fall on centralized national decisions. So Jonathan Moreno’s epitaph for stem cell federalism in the aftermath of the surprising defeat of a New Jersey bond issue to support stem cell research is premature and, as Mark Twain would have it, greatly exaggerated. The New Jersey vote was surprising to most observers, but it’s hardly a decisive defeat either for federalism or the stem cell cause.

First, it’s worth noting that New Jersey’s only one state and the defeated bond issue wouldn’t have accounted for that large a share of state spending on stem cell research. Stem cell spending is proceeding apace in other states -- California has already made several rounds of awards which make it the largest funder of human embryonic stem cell research in the world and recently sold the first installment of bonds to finance this research. Other states -- Connecticut, Maryland, and New York -- are proceeding with smaller programs, and larger programs are under discussion in others. Potential state spending for stem cell research, even after the New Jersey defeat, is over $450 million per year for the next eight to ten years; or more than ten times what NIH is spending annually on human embryonic stem cell research. It’s also worth noting that private support for stem cell research has been very large— I published a guesstimate of $1.7 billion a couple of months ago and have had enough additions called to my attention since then to revise that number up to at least $2 billion, which is likely still too low.

It’s instructive to compare this continued state and private progress with the inertia at NIH which Moreno thinks should be in charge of stem cell research. As Rick Weiss chronicles in a Washington Post article published this summer, NIH appears to be dragging out the process of addressing an executive order to finance means of developing stem cells with methods that do not “harm” human embryos. Some observers have argued that this means what we’ve argued here before -- nothing at all is going to happen in this administration.

Many, many advocates appear to be hoping that something better will happen after the elections of 2008, which are seen by many as the “Morning After” the sinking of the Titanic. As we’ve argued before as well, the prospects of a major reversal in federal stem cell policy, no matter who wins the election, are slim. Any new president will inherit shooting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly Iran, major tax cuts that expire in 2010, and complicated foreign policy problems in the Middle East and Pakistan. The “Morning After” domestic agenda is getting pretty crowded as well---Democratic candidates all have major proposals to expand access to health care coverage, and the stalling of Congressional negotiations over the extension of the No Child Left Behind Act may mean no action on federal education reform during this administration as well.

Given this very full and expensive agenda for any new President and Congress, the odds of major shifts that would put the feds decisively in charge of national stem cell policy seem very long indeed. A new president might well sign the bill President Bush has vetoed twice and may eliminate some of the more onerous regulations requiring the segregation of federally supported research from that supported from other sources, but that may well be about it. Eliminating other restrictions on federally supported research and dramatically increasing federal spending on stem cell research, for example, are not likely to be issues on which Presidents and Members of Congress are likely to spend scarce political capital. NIH budgets have been flat-lined for the last few years, and efforts to spend more federal money on stem cell research are likely to attract opposition from other scientists who can’t get their own research funded, among others. Those expecting things to change dramatically after the next election need to remember that the “Morning After” is just a pretty song.

James W. Fossett co-directs the Rockefeller Institute of Government/AMBI states and bioethics program. He is also responsible for the Rockefeller Institute's health and Medicaid studies and is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Public Health at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany.