Proposition 71 Has Created a Monster

AP reports that first amendment groups are furious over tight secrecy concerning how $3 billion in tax dollars will be spent. ContraCostaTimes reports on "growing" complaints that the stem cell legislation offers too many opportunities to use stem cell money in California to make institutions rich. And it is certainly true that the stakeholders are running the show: "Many of the 29 board members, appointed by the governor and other elected officials to run the agency, represent research universities and the biotech industry, both of which are expected to win millions of dollars worth of grants."

On the Way to Regulating Stem Cells in California

News from the National Academies conference in Irvine, California this week. Moreno, Charo, Lo are quoted. "R. Alta Charo, a bioethics professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told the audience that, for anyone who believes embryonic stem-cell research is unregulated and has slipped through the cracks, she had brought 35 slides dedicated solely to the field's current regulations."

Medicinal Marijuana in Tennessee

The poll on the sidebar of this piece about legalization of marijuana for medicinal use in Tennessee suggests that Nashville's online readers are in favor of medicinal use of marijuana. The proposal is intriging, going both further than other states and using smart and novel criteria. But maybe it isn't the most practical proposal, since Tennessee - thoroughly red - is enjoying its first republican-led legislature in more than a century. ''The important ethical issue here is that it may be that our preconceptions are blinding us to the possible medical help the substance could provide,'' said [Stuart] Finder, director of Vanderbilt's Center for Clinical and Research Ethics. ''There are some indications it could be helpful, but the only way to find out is to study it. Do we risk giving up our preconceptions to look at it?" Marijuana of regulated quality, Vanderbilt, compassion and good folk music. Maybe we should move there?

German Workplace Genetic Testing

The Germans are well on the way to creating the most comprehensive workplace genetic testing regulations, according to a report in Der Spiegel. Ethics is very much involved in the debate, with a likely outcome a total ban.