California Stem Cell Opposition: Conservative Writer Declares Golden State Efforts a 'Bust'

In a preview of what is likely to be a heated ballot campaign next year,  a conservative writer declared this week that California's efforts to develop stem cell therapies are "a scientific and financial bust." 

"Back in 2004, the $3 billion California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, Proposition 71, promised life-saving cures and therapies for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other diseases. The cures and therapies, in turn, would send money flowing into state coffers, so the project, in effect, would pay for itself. It didn’t exactly work out that way," said Lloyd Billingsley on two different web sites.  

"CIRM proved itself a scientific and financial bust, and almost completely off limits to state oversight."

Billingsley has written in the past about the agency, known as CIRM and formally as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. His latest columns appeared on the California Globe, which was founded by Ken Kurson, who has ties to the Trump family and Rudy Guiliani, and The Beacon.  

Billingsley likened the agency to the troubled bullet train project in California and efforts to solve some of California's water problems by building a tunnel under the California delta east of San Francisco. 

CIRM expects to run out of cash this year for new awards and hopes to survive with voter approval of a proposed, $5 billion bond measure on the November 2020 ballot.

It could be a hard-fought campaign, but conservatives and other likely opponents could well be diverted if President Trump is on the ballot. 

See here and here for more on Kurson, founder of the  California Globe, and here for the advisors to the Beacon web site and its parent organization.