Prop. 14 Ballot Results: Narrow Lead for the $5.5 Billion Measure

Proposition 14, the $5.5 billion California stem cell measure, is winning approval from about 52 percent of voters with slightly over half of the state's precincts reporting. 

But the margin is too small to declare a win for supporters of the measure. Look for an update on the vote early tomorrow morning (Wednesday). 

Voting on Proposition 14

(10:25 p.m. PDT)

Geographic Area	Percentage Yes	Percentage No	Percentage of Precincts Reporting
Statewide	52.0	48.0	50.3
Los Angeles County	52.5	47.5	NA
San Diego County	54.1	45.9	NA
Orange County	48.9	51.5	NA
Riverside County	49.5	50.5	29.0
San Bernardino	50.2	49.8	NA

Election Results Prop. 14: Returns are Mixed and Very Preliminary

Early returns on voting on Proposition 14, the $5.5 billion California stem cell measure, are mixed and too preliminary to make firm conclusions about its fate. The counties listed are the five most populous in the state. Polls closed at 8 p.m. PDT.

These early returns do not necessarily indicate the final result, which may not be known for days, depending on how close the margin is.

Voting on Proposition 14

Geographic Area	Percentage Yes	Percentage No	Percentage of Precincts Reporting
Statewide	51.3	47.57	2.2
Los Angeles County	54.9	45.10	NA
San Diego County	54.26	45.74	NA
Orange County	48.85	51.5	NA
Riverside County	49.81	50.18	26
San Bernardino	NA	NA	NA

Prop. 14 Narrrowly Leading in Extremely Early Returns

Voting on Proposition 14

Early returns on voting on Proposition 14, the $5.5 billion California stem cell measure, showed that the measure was running ahead with  the state's voter. The counties listed are the five most populous in the state. Polls closed at 8 p.m. PDT.

These early returns do not necessarily indicate the final result, which may not be known for days, depending on how close the margin is. 

Geographic Area	Percentage Yes	Percentage No	Percentage of Precincts Reporting
Statewide	51.3	48.7	2.2
Los Angeles County	NA	NA
San Diego County	NA	NA
Orange County	NA	NA
Riverside County	NA	NA
San Bernardino	NA	NA

Looking for Results on the $5.5 Billion Stem Cell Measure in California? Find Them Right Here

The California Stem Cell Report will carry results tonight on Proposition 14, the $5.5 billion stem cell research ballot initiative, beginning shortly after 8 p.m. PDT. 

The mainstream media will be focused on other races that will go unmentioned here. The California Stem Cell Report, however, will be digging into the returns most of the evening and will bring Proposition 14 results to you right here on this site both tonight and again tomorrow morning.  

Prop. 14: California Voters Like Bond Measures Most of the Time -- At Least in the Past

If the past is any guide, the $5.5 billion ballot measure to rescue the state of California's stem cell program from financial extinction is likely to win approval today from voters.

Golden State voters have been generous with bond measures since 1986, approving them more than a majority of the time in statewide elections. 

According to figures compiled by the state's Legislative Analyst, 67 bond measures on statewide ballots have been approved in the last 34 years. Twenty-seven were rejected. 

That said, considerable caveats abound. These are not ordinary times.  

The state is reeling from wildfires, severe economic disruption, Covid-19, overstretched local and state budgets not to mention pandemic fatigue. 

And just how all that will translate to action on Proposition 14, the stem cell ballot initiative is unclear. No polls have been published on the measure, which has been eclipsed by much higher profile measures, not to mention the presidential race. 

But it could well be that the public wants more certainty in terms of medical care and cures, which the backers of Proposition 14 promise.

"Proposition 14 continues vital funding to find treatments and cures for life-threatening diseases and conditions that affect someone in nearly half of all California families – such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes," says the campaign website.

"Stem cell research is restoring health and improving lives in California," the site says.

Oddly enough the heavy promotion in past years of snake-oil "stem cell" therapies may well benefit the measure. Everybody loves miracles. And significant segments of the public do not distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate medical claims.

That said, it could cut the other way as well, with some voters thinking Proposition 14 is a close cousin of the rogue "stem cell" clinics, which number in the hundreds across California and are almost totally unregulated. 

Election results are likely to be slow to surface this evening after polls close at 8 p.m. PDT. The mainstream media will be focused on other races that will go unmentioned here. The California Stem Cell Report, however, will be digging into the returns most of the evening and will bring Proposition 14 results to you right here on this site both tonight and again tomorrow morning. 

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​Read all about California's stem cell agency, including Proposition 14, in David Jensen's new book. Buy it on Amazon: California's Great Stem Cell Experiment: Inside a $3 Billion Search for Stem Cell Cures. Click here for more information on the author.

Prop. 14: USA Today Looks at UCLA Gene Therapy and California's Stem Cell Program

The Lagenhop family in Los Angeles for a clinical
trial to treat their children for a fatal affliction
Harrison Hill/USA Today photo

USA Today has published a lengthy piece involving initial, favorable results from a more than $12 million clinical trial backed by the California stem cell agency and involving a rare disease that usually ends the lives of children before they reach kindergarten age.

The article comes on the eve of the final day for voting on a ballot initiative, Proposition 14, to save the agency from financial extinction by giving it $5.5 billion more. Officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicince (CIRM), the 16-year-old agency is running out of its original $3 billion and is scheduled to begin closing its doors this winter without a boost from the initiative.

The research involves three children from Ohio who are being treated at UCLA in a trial being conducted by Donald Kohn, who has performed other genetic therapy procedures for rare diseases. For the work, CIRM awarded Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded, New York-based firm, $6.6 million in May 2019. The firm provided co-funding of $5.6 million. (Here is a link to the summary of the review of the application, CLIN2-11480.)

Over the years, CIRM has supported Kohn's work with $52 million, not including the Rocket funding. 

The USA Today article by Karen Weintraub began with the case of the family of Alicia and Jon Langenhop of Canton, Ohio. The piece delved into the history of the California stem cell program, but did not mention the agency or its official name.  Proposition 14 was mentioned twice, once in the headline. 

USA Today is a national newspaper. Circulation figures for California are not available, although it reports national, weekly circulation of 726,906. Today's story, which would resonate with many voters, was tucked away in its health section.  

The affliction involved is Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency-I (LAD-I. 

"Patients with severe LAD-I can develop life-threatening infections because their white blood cells are unable to leave the bloodstream to fight them. Without a successful bone marrow transplant, severe LAD-I is most frequently fatal during the first 2 years of life," the Rocket web site said.

The company's stock price today closed at $28.74, up 70 cents. Its 52-week high is $30.43, and its 52-week low is $9.01. 

USA Today quoted some researchers as saying taxpayer spending has put the Golden State in "the forefront of global stem cell research." The article said, 

"George Daley, a stem cell biologist who is dean of Harvard Medical School, said he's envious of the California researchers who have access to this pot of money.

"'California has always been a very exciting place to pursue science, but prior to (the taxpayer funding), it wasn't exactly the place that was the first on the tip of your tongue as a powerhouse community for stem cell science,' he said. 'But there's no way that today it wouldn't be listed in the top three.'"

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Read all about California's stem cell agency, including Proposition 14,  in David Jensen's new book. Download it from Amazon:  California's Great Stem Cell Experiment: Inside a $3 Billion Search for Stem Cell Cures. Click here for more information on the author.

Prop. 14 in the Media: Supporters Plugging Away with Opinion Pieces

The ballot measure to rescue the California stem cell agency with $5.5 billion drew a few more opinion articles of support online this weekend as the opposition to Proposition 14 continued to be all but invisible. 

Supporters, however, are not likely to rest easy during the next two days. As the sponsor of the measure, Palo Alto real estate developer Robert Klein, has remarked, the impact of Covid-19 on voters, with all its economic and emotional ramifications, is the biggest question mark involving approval of Proposition 14.

The campaign has attracted little news coverage in the media with the exception of one-off pieces. No polls have been taken on the proposal, which would send the state stem cell agency into new areas that go well beyond the direction of the agency since 2004, when it was created. The agency was provided with $3 billion at the time but is scheduled to begin closing its doors this winter as the funds run out.

Here is a rundown on articles by supporters that have appeared in recent days.

Don Reed, a patient advocate and longtime supporter of the agency, continued with a parade of items on his blog, Stem Cell Battles. The most recent focused on hearing loss work at Stanford by Alan Cheng, who has received $4.5 million from the stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).

Reed quoted Cheng as saying, 

“We see regrowth of hair cells in the mouse balance organs — and the balance function appears to improve, according to how many hair cells come back.” 

Writing on online on IVN was Alysia Vaccaro, who said, 

"In 2012, when my daughter Evangelina, “Evie,” was just six weeks old, she was diagnosed with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). More commonly known as “bubble baby” disease, the rare genetic disorder left her at risk of death from any infection, even a diaper rash or the common cold. Born alongside a healthy twin, we were told Evie would likely not make it to her second birthday.

"However, thanks to Proposition 71 in 2004, California voter’s initial investment in stem cell research and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a groundbreaking treatment was discovered at the University of California Los Angeles that saved my daughter’s life and 49 other babies born with the same rare disease – giving them all functioning immune systems and a second chance to live a long, healthy life."

Larry Goldstein, a UC San Diego researcher who has received $21.5 million from CIRM, wrote on the Times of San Diego, 

"A yes vote on Proposition 14 is crucial to continue the pace of medical research and our state’s journey to save lives. For millions of Californians who live with a chronic disease or condition, and who need new therapies, this may be their last hope.....There is a glaring funding gap between early lab work and late-stage clinical trials — known as “The Valley of Death” — that often ends promising stem cell research."

**** 

​Read all about California's stem cell agency, including Proposition 14,  in David Jensen's new book. Download it from Amazon:  California's Great Stem Cell Experiment: Inside a $3 Billion Search for Stem Cell Cures. Click here for more information on the author. 

Prop. 14 News Coverage: Los Angeles Times and Politico Take a Crack at the Stem Cell Measure

A $5.5 billion ballot measure to save the California stem cell agency from financial extinction popped up in coverage this week in the Los Angeles Times and Politico, a national political and government news service. 

Both pieces raised questions about the agency and its history, not to mention whether it fits with California's current government priorities.

The proposal is Proposition 14. It would provide the billions to the agency,  expanding its scope significantly into such areas as mental health and therapy delivery that are not necessarily related to stem cells. 

In his piece, George Skelton, a longtime political columnist for the Times, the largest circulation newspaper in the state, noted that the agency was funded in 2004 with $3 billion, which is now running out. Skelton wrote, 

"That’s a ton of money for a little-noticed agency that provides a questionable state service. But many of the research projects have been very worthwhile." 

In the article, the Proposition 14 campaign, headed by Palo Alto developer Robert Klein, also continued its pattern of making exaggerated or misleading claims.  

"If we don’t continue the state funding, lots of facilities would have to close their doors,” says Kendall Klingler, the Proposition 14 spokeswoman....

"'We have more than 90 stem cell trials underway,' she says.

"The agency does have a record of some success: funding research that has led to treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for blood and bone marrow cancers, for example."

Regarding the number of clinical trials funded by the research program, the agency itself only claims 64. The additional 30 or so trials are not funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the agency is officially known. They utilize a piece of CIRM-financed research, however tiny, someplace along the way. And not necessarily a significant piece. 

The FDA treatments mentioned are not stem cell treatments, which is what was promised by the 2004 campaign. The agency has not funded any research that has resulted in a stem cell therapy that is available to the general public. 

And it is simply not accurate to say that "lots" of stem cell facilities partially financed with CIRM cash will be closing. All of them are occupied and fully in use. The recipients of the facilities grants, such as Stanford and UC San Francisco, are exceedingly unlikely to close the buildings.

Skelton concluded that CIRM has "failed to live up to its original hype." He said, 

"It was aloof to Sacramento, and not subject to oversight by the Legislature and governor. There’s been a lack of transparency.

"There was also an odor of interest conflicts among agency board members who seemed to steer grants toward their own institutions, even though they recused themselves from voting."

(In the interest of full disclosure, I worked for Skelton in the Capitol bureau of United Press International in the 1970s when he was bureau chief there.)

Over at Politico, Victoria Colliver wrote,  

"It's not clear that the Yes on 14 campaign's $15 million, even with a campaign that features actor Seth Rogen as “Stemmy the Stem Cell," will get the job done.

"'We’re running against Covid-19. That’s our real opposition,” said Robert Klein, the wealthy real estate investor and attorney who authored both measures and is the main funder of Prop. 14, along with Dagmar Dolby, the widow of inventor and sound engineer Ray Dolby.

"The differences between 2004 and 2020 are stark.

"Back then, Klein and other proponents had a ready-made argument by pointing to President W. Bush's prohibition on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, a stance supported by the religious right. In the nation's biotech capital — with an electorate dominated by Democrats and independent voters that support abortion rights — stem-cell backers made the case that California needed to step in to keep research alive.

"Many of the promises made 16 years ago, including its projections in royalties and state revenues from new treatments, have not borne out. Funding from the agency has supported more than 60 clinical trials, but CIRM has yet to fund a single stem-cell therapy approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for widespread use."

Prop. 14 News Coverage: Campaign Chicken Feed and Editorials

The Biopolitical Times this week briefly explored campaign spending on Proposition 14, newspaper editorials and opposition to the $5.5 billion stem cell research measure on this fall's California ballot.

The piece by Pete Shanks, who has followed the state stem cell agency for a number of years and opposes the measure, called the $18 million spent on behalf of Proposition 14 "almost modest." It is actually chicken feed compared to the more than $700 million spent so far on California on all ballot propositions.

Indeed, the $18 million is smaller than many grants from California's stem cell agency, which would be refinanced and significantly expanded under Proposition 14. A substantial number of the agency's grants run about $20 million. 

Several years ago, Robert Klein, the Palo Alto real estate developer heading the campaign, told the California Stem Cell Report that the effort would cost $50 million. However, the more modest $18 million may be the product of a difficult fundraising environment this year rather than reflecting what is needed to win approval of the measure. Or it could be a lack of enthusiasm among potential major donors.  

Known officially as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the agency is scheduled to begin closing its doors this winter without a substantial infusion of cash.

Shanks also tallied up newspaper editorials on Proposition 14 and said, "Overall, the  'NO' publications seem far more impressive." Many of the major newspapers in the state oppose the measure, including the Los Angeles Times, the state's largest circulation newspaper. The San Francisco Chronicle, which spent months in 2018 analyzing the operations of the stem cell agency, also opposed Proposition 14. 

Shanks noted that Zach Hall, the first president of the agency, says the agency has served its purpose and no longer is needed. The California Stem Cell Report on Monday first reported Hall's position. 

The Biopolitical Times is produced by the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, Ca., which opposed creation of the stem cell agency in 2004.  

*****

Read all about California's stem cell agency, including Proposition 14,  in David Jensen's new book. Download it from Amazon:  California's Great Stem Cell Experiment: Inside a $3 Billion Search for Stem Cell Cures. Click here for more information on the author.

Proposition 14: The Latest News and Opinion, STAT to Capitol Weekly

The national biomedical news service STAT today took a look at California's $5.5 billion stem cell measure, declaring it was backed by a "well-financed campaign that’s making heady promises about curing diabetes, paralysis, cancer, and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases."

The headline on the story by Usha Lee McFarling said,

"With wildfires burning and Covid-19 spreading, can California afford stem cell research? Voters are set to decide"

McFarling's story was one of the more detailed that have appeared so far either nationally or within California.

She had this observation from a Los Angeles specialist on ballot initiatives, which is the direct democracy tool that Robert Klein, a Palo Alto real estate developer, used to place Proposition 14 on the ballot.

"John Matsusaka, an economist who heads the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. He said federal funding restrictions that fueled support of Proposition 71 are no longer a major concern, proponents have not done a great job demonstrating that voters got their money’s worth from the first $3 billion, and the measure is coming to voters during tough fiscal times." 

In 2004, Proposition 71, also created by Klein, established the state stem cell agency, known officially as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), and provided it with $3 billion. The money is nearly gone.  CIRM is set to begin closing its doors this winter unless Proposition 14 is approved. 

Mentioned or quoted in the STAT story were Alan Trounson, former CEO of CIRM, researchers Larry Goldstein of UC San Diego, Irv Weissman of Stanford, Jeanne Loring of Aspen Neurosciences, Inc., Andy McMahon of USC, and Jan Nolta of UC Davis. Others included CIRM governing board members Joe Panetta and Jeff Sheehy, and Melissa King, executive director of Americans for Cures and the head of field operations for the campaign group "Yes on 14." 

The STAT piece dealt with the range of pro and con arguments, including conflicts of interest. 

"'The people who decide who is going to get funded are the people who get funded. That’s a built-in conflict of interest they made no attempt to fix,' said John Simpson, who monitored CIRM for many years as stem cell project director for the group Consumer Watchdog. 'They need to go back to the drawing board and fix these structural flaws.'"

"Some of the conflicts have been so flagrant as to be almost comical. For example, former CIRM President Alan Trounson once asked prominent biochemist Leroy Hood to be a reviewer of a grant by Irv Weissman, the director of Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, after the three men spent time fly fishing together on a Montana ranch jointly owned by Weissman and Hood."

Also appearing today was an opinion piece on the Capitol Weekly online news service by Pete Shanks, who has written about CIRM for years on the blog, Biopolitical Times. 

He cited the much-discussed issues surrounding the stem cell agency and wrote 

"Proposition 14 could have addressed these defects. Instead, it made them worse: It enlarges the board to 35 members, still mostly drawn from representatives of the universities, companies, and research institutes that receive its grants."

Shanks also said, 

"The 2004 proposition campaign has been widely criticized for hype: over-promising the imminence and certainty of breakthroughs. The advocates called their operation 'Cures for California,' but these have been in short supply. They also said that stem cell research would enormously reduce California’s medical costs, but there’s no sign of that.

"The campaign for Proposition. 14 follows the same pattern. It claims that the new multibillion-dollar investment has 'massive savings potential' and a 'low impact' on the budget. Skepticism is definitely in order."

*****

​Read all about California's stem cell agency, including Proposition 14,  in David Jensen's new book. Download it from Amazon:  California's Great Stem Cell Experiment: Inside a $3 Billion Search for Stem Cell Cures. Click here for more information on the author. 

Proposition 14: First CEO of California Stem Cell Agency Says $5.5 Billion Stem Cell Measure Not Needed

Zach Hall, UCSD photo

The first president of the California stem cell agency, Zach Hall, says that he would vote against the $5.5 billion ballot measure to save the research enterprise from financial extinction if he still lived in California.

Hall, now retired and living in Wyoming, says a justification for agency existed in 2004 when it was created by voters via another ballot measure, the $3 billion Proposition 71. 

But, according to the new book, "California's Great Stem Cell Experiment," Hall says "that the rationale and need are not so evident today for a state-supported agency dedicated to stem cell research."  

The creation of induced pluripotent stem cells has largely supplanted the use of cells derived from embryos, Hall said. The Bush Administration restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research were major drivers for Proposition 71, but those have now been lifted.

Hall said that the National Institutes of Health could likely support most of the stem cell work that is now backed by CIRM.

Proposition 14, the $5.5 billion ballot initiative, would refill the stem cell agency's coffers. The program is running out of the $3 billion provided in 2004 and will begin  closing its doors this winter without major funding. 

Hall was president and CEO of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the agency is formally known, from 2005 to 2007 and drew up the agency's first strategic plan. During his long career, Hall was also director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the 1990s, executive vice chancellor at UC San Francisco, CEO of En Vivo Pharmaceuticals and a director of the New York Stem Cell Foundation.

Interviewed for the book, which was authored by this writer, Hall said that he has no regrets about serving as its first president, a job he largely enjoyed. 

Hall said that Proposition 71 of 2004 served an important and useful purpose. It helped to re-energize the stem field at a time when it was “disheartened and demoralized” by the restrictions of the Bush Administration.

While the 2004 measure had significant flaws, he said it was very successful at a critical time in attracting stem cell researchers to California.

“The idea that California would make this sort of commitment, I think, had a huge impact on the field,” Hall said.

 “It's certainly true that because of Proposition 71 that California continues to play a stronger role in stem cell research than it otherwise would have. But, contrary to some expectations, it is not the center of the universe of stem cell research in the same way that Silicon Valley is for information technology.

“It is one of many global centers of excellence for stem cell research. One perhaps naïve expectation that has not been met is an explosion of profitable California biotech companies specializing in stem cell research.”

Hall said, however, that Proposition 14 “is searching for a rationale to continue CIRM.” Hall mentioned the “amorphous” research avenues provided for in the measure: mental health, personalized medicine, “aging as a pathology” and “vital research opportunities.”

“You can use the money for almost anything,” Hall said. “This takes off a lot of the brakes on how the money can be spent.”

Given what has been learned over the last 15 years, he said he would have thought a new initiative would have attempted to improve governance and try to make CIRM work better, be more efficient and more strategic. “There's just no sense of thoughtfulness of using the expertise of getting relevant people together to think about it and come up with a plan,” Hall said.

He also said that Proposition 14 does not provide a good or transparent mechanism for making decisions about how the money is going to be spent.

“My guess is that all the board positions will be filled by constituents, people who depend on CIRM money in some way and who will be very pliable about what is to be done. Exactly the wrong way to do it.”

The California Stem Cell Report asked Hall last week if he would like to add anything to his earlier comments for the book. "One thought I might add," he replied, "concerns the idea that Proposition 14 will address the issue of the 'Valley of Death', i.e. the gap between discovering a possible therapeutic and being able to 'de-risk it' enough to attract the interest of big pharma.  What is being proposed, it seems, is that CIRM wants to act as a kind of VC (venture capitalist) with the state's money.  

"In my view, a much better approach to this problem is to find ways to encourage academic and industry scientists (both biotech and big pharma) to work together starting from an early stage of the work. This has been done effectively (and much more cheaply!) by several private philanthropic organizations.  The Michael J. Fox Foundation and Target ALS are two examples that I know of." 

Looking for the $700,000, IOM Evaluation of the California Stem Cell Agency? Here is a Good Link

 

In 2012, the prestigious Institute of Medicine published a report on California's stem cell agency after months of studying the research program at a cost of $700,000 to the agency itself.

Directors of the agency had expected that the "gold standard" study would give the agency a seal of approval that would lead voters in California to approve additional billions for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the agency is officially known.

The report by the IOM (now called the National Academy of Medicine) has a number of bad links to it on the Internet, and some persons have reported difficulty in finding it. Here is a link that will take you directly to the study where you can read it free online.

Here is the beginning of an article about the study when it was released on Dec. 6, 2012.

IOM Recommends Sweeping Changes at California Stem Cell Agency

A blue-ribbon study of the $3 billion California stem cell agency today said the program has “achieved many notable results,” but recommended sweeping changes to remove conflict of interest problems, clean up a troubling dual-executive arrangement and fundamentally change the nature of the governing board.

The recommendations from the 17-month study by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) would strip the board of its ability to approve individual grants, greatly strengthen the role of the agency's president, significantly alter the role of patient advocates on the governing board and engage the biotech industry more vigorously.

For more on the IOM report and CIRM's actions on its recommendations, see the new book, "California's Great Stem Cell Experiment: An Inside Look at a $3 Billion Search for Stem Cell Cures."

Proposition 14: The Scientist Magazine Digs into California's Stem Cell Agency and the Ballot Measure

The Scientist magazine yesterday published a more detailed look at the state of California's stem cell agency and a $5.5 billion ballot measure that would send it into arenas that it has previously not explored. 

The article by Katarina Zimmer said the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has "helped transform its state into an innovation hub of stem cell science."  The article was more complete and detailed than many of the news pieces prepared by California media.

Quoted by Zimmer were stem cell scientists Jeanne Loring, co-founder of Aspen Neurosciences, Inc. of La Jolla; Larry Goldstein of UC San Diego, and Jeff Sheehy, who has served on the CIRM board since its inception in 2004. 

Zimmer also cited the 2012 Institute of Medicine (IOM) study that was commissioned by CIRM at a cost of $700,000. Directors of the agency expected a "gold standard" endorsement of the agency, but the IOM cited significant problems with conflicts of interest on the board. The study also recommended major restructuring of the board and the agency. 

An analysis last month by the California Stem Cell Report showed that 79 percent of CIRM awards -- $2.1 billion -- has gone to institutions that have links to past or present board members. 

Robert Klein, the sponsor of the $5.5 billion Proposition 14, did not include any of the more significant recommendations from the IOM in his 17,000-word, proposed revision of CIRM's legal charter. Klein was a strong advocate for commissioning the study by the prestigious IOM.  Klein was not quoted by The Scientist. 

Zimmer's piece covered many of the arguments pro and con on Proposition 14 that are familiar to readers of this web site. However, her piece is not likely to find significant numbers of readers among California's 20 million voters. Only a tiny fraction of them read The Scientist magazine. 

However, The Scientist does reach a significant number of persons globally that are interested in such things as stem cell research.

For more on the IOM report and CIRM's actions on its recommendations, see the new book, "California's Great Stem Cell Experiment: An Inside Look at a $3 Billion Search for Stem Cell Cures."