FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Betraying the voters: Panel of University and business experts want California to waive stem cell product royalties

August 24, 2005- Oakland, CA. Last November, voters were told that a broke California would benefit financially by granting $3 billion dollars to stem cell research. Based on this promise and finding cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, California voted Yes on Proposition 71.

Less than a year later, The California Council on Science and Technology is recommending that California waive their rights to royalties on the stem cell research. They claim this move could increase private investments needed for the research.

The Center for Bioethics and Culture (www.thecbc.org) has always

objected to Prop. 71 for ethical reasons as well as the fiscal

recklessness. Wesley Smith calls this “A Betrayal of the Voters; a Proposition 71 Bait and Switch.”

California Voters were promised the research would pay for itself and state residents would end up paying less for health care.

Proposition 71 passed based on these promises. Today, California

is being faced with the possibility of receiving zero profit and a deeper fiscal crisis.


Author Profile

Jennifer Lahl, CBC President
Jennifer Lahl, CBC President
Jennifer Lahl, MA, BSN, RN, is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics. As a field expert, she is routinely interviewed on radio and television including ABC, CBS, PBS, and NPR. She is also called upon to speak alongside lawmakers and members of the scientific community, even being invited to speak to members of the European Parliament in Brussels to address issues of egg trafficking; she has three times addressed the United Nations during the Commission on the Status of Women on egg and womb trafficking.