Senate Begins Debate

Senate Begins Debate

As I write this, the Senate was scheduled to begin debating the stem cell bill package ten minutes ago. The vote is scheduled for tomorrow. This is the story dominating the stem cell news right now, but I’m not going to blog various articles about it. The real news will be after the Bush veto of the bills—what will that do to his considerably low approval ratings? If it makes an impact, then we can probably expect it to be an important issue in some of the Congressional races this fall. If it’s only a blip, then probably it will not be the issue that defines a candidate.

Democrats may be able to work it to their advantage by presenting a rift in the Republican party, but I think they have to be careful so they don’t lose the support of moderate Republicans on other issues. They also will need to be careful about the images they present and not appear to be using ill people for political advantage. I think one of the issues that needs to be capitalized on by Democrats is Bush’s apparently anti-science stance; educated and thinking Republicans are probably concerned about this aspect of his presidency.

I don’t think November voters are likely to send a strong message about stem cells in particular, but they may send a message about the Republican party.

Prop 71 Patent Update

Prop 71 Patent Update

I reported a while ago that biotech companies were not about to share their patentable research freely with other grantees under Prop. 71. Now the biotech companies have won this issue; the Belleville News-Democrat printed a story last Friday (originally from the Contra Costa Times) reporting that the discovery-sharing has been removed by a panel. The full board will vote later on. The companies will still be required to pay a share of their profits to the state and to make any therapies developed available to uninsured persons. The policy only applies to firms working with universities or non-profits; any companies that receive grants directly from the CIRM will be under a different policy, as yet to be developed. One person on the panel said that he agreed to the elimination of the policy because many firms already share their information, but if an issue crops up later on it could be revisited. The goal of information sharing is to speed up research and to avoid patent infringement lawsuits.

This is obviously a win for the biotech industry. Whether it is a loss for taxpayers is completely unknown at this point—we’ll have to see what happens when the money is doled out and results start coming in. Keeping things out of expensive litigation is a good thing for the taxpayers, and if the biotech companies are cooperative perhaps it will work out.