A message from the chairman of the board:

So what’s in today’s news? The San Francisco Chronicle is starting to ask serious questions about the fine print of the $6bn corporate welfare proposition that was rushed through to fund embryo cloning. There’s news that a monkey embryo has been cloned. Roger Pedersen, the Cal. professor whom I once debated on cloning and who “fled” to the UK so he could pursue his research, is now trumpeting the fact that his former home and his new one lead the world in this unsavory business. Three gripping stories about the future of us all, and I have just begun to open my email and scan the press.

That’s why we set up the CBC: to get this vital information out to people like you, so we become the best-informed in the culture and therefore the best able to shape its future. Like it or not, someone is shaping it. The more resources we can pull together for CBC, the more can be done. The old adage “think global, act local” could not be more true here. So we are building national resources, such as our website and email newsletters, and developing local initiatives to engage our communities.

There are so many opportunities. Let me just tell you about some of mine in the past few days. There have been several interviews with journalists. On Friday of last week I was speaking with a group of state senators on cloning legislation. On Saturday I was a thousand miles away, discussing strategy for federal biopolicy. Over the weekend I was working on a paper I had been invited to submit to the UNESCO bioethics committee on the latest draft of their bioethics declaration. And then we had a CBC executive meeting by telephone, discussing the budget for 2005.

Let’s build this team: sustaining the work of CBC, and in turn being sustained by it – as we each engage the culture in the cause of sane biotechnology and the centrality of human dignity.

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