A few days ago we received a note from a gentleman at the State University of New York, Albany, that seemed to reflect a rose-colored view of the current state of affairs at the California stem cell agency.
Or perhaps his message was intended to indicate that we are taking an excessively negative view of the situation. There is no doubt that CIRM is moving forward, albeit in fits and starts. As we have discussed before, creating an operation such as CIRM from scratch is more difficult than most of us understand.
But the agency itself has set high and ambitious goals that it has failed to meet. And it is a long ways from being fully operational.
Two of the major problems – litigation and money -- were discussed recently in the San Diego Union Tribune and the San Jose Mercury News.
Reporter Terri Somers of the San Diego paper wrote about the plan to finance the agency's operations with bond anticipation notes from the state. She noted there were major skeptics, including Harold Johnson of the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento.
"I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't many takers for what the treasurer's peddling. These notes may be to state financial instruments what the Edsel was to cars, or New Coke was to soda," Johnson told her.
"Finding buyers for the notes may be a big hurdle," Somers wrote. "After circulating the bond anticipation notes to institutional investors, the state determined this month that there were no interested buyers. The treasurer's office is now circulating the term sheet to philanthropic investors, such as foundations that support medical research."
The stem cell agency's attorney, James Harrison, said there never was "any expectation that institutional investors would be interested in buying the notes because they are relatively risky and unusual." That, of course, raises the question of why such an effort was even made.
On the litigation front, reporter Steven Johnson of the San Jose Mercury News said that the agency "could be in for a legal fight that cripples its core mission for a year or more."
Johnson wrote: "'Getting the suits (against the agency) resolved legally by the end of this year is 'extremely unlikely,' said (California) Deputy Attorney General Tamar Pachter. Although some experts say resolution of the suits could take up to 18 months, she added, 'your guess is as good as mine.'''
And then comes an item from Stuart Leavenworth, an associate editor of The Sacramento Bee, on Sunday, concerning national stem cell legislation "that would criminalize techniques many scientists - including those here in California - say are essential for developing stem cell therapies. (Republican leader) Frist may ultimately support those restrictions as a way to restore his credibility with religious conservatives. The outcome could be crippling to California's $3 billion Institute of Regenerative Medicine (which already has its own problems)."
As our correspondent from New York suggests, CIRM is clearly a work in progress. All the more reason for the public to pay exceedingly close attention to it. A year from now the fledgling bureaucracy will be a different creature. We can only hope that it fulfills its promises of transparency and disclosure as well as its aspirations to lead the way to therapies and cures that could help millions.
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