Posted on 12/11/2004 10:09:22 AM PST by NormsRevenge
With less than a week before the debut of the state's new $3-billion stem cell institute, intense behind-the-scenes debate is growing over who should head the agency and whether a Friday deadline for filling the post will allow the best candidates to be considered.
The debate is expected to crest Monday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and three other elected state officials must, under the tight deadlines set by the state's embryonic stem cell initiative, put forward their nominees to lead the new agency.
On Friday, board members — many still to be named — are scheduled to meet in San Francisco and vote on those nominees.
The chairperson will immediately become among the most influential officials in the field of biological research, running much of the day-to-day operations of an institute that will dole out about $300 million a year in grants, more than 10 times what the federal government now spends yearly in the stem cell field.
The way the initiative, Proposition 71, was written, the institute's decisions will be largely immune to review by the state Legislature or other government agencies.
Raising the stakes further, the guidelines that the agency creates for embryonic stem cell research here are likely to set the standards for work elsewhere. Advocates for the research worry that missteps could damage their cause.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Núñez names two to stem-cell panels (EXCERPT)
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/11728469p-12616597c.html
Laura Mecoy/Sac Bee
Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez on Friday named an autism group's founder to the committee that will oversee the state's new stem-cell research program and picked a former teachers union official from Fair Oaks to serve on its financial accountability panel.
He appointed Jonathan Shestack, a Los Angeles producer who founded Cure Autism Now, to an eight-year term on the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee.
The 45-year-old father of an autistic child founded the autism research and advocacy group in 1995 and serves as vice president, secretary and treasurer of it now. The speaker has just one appointment to the citizens oversight committee. Proposition 71, the initiative voters approved Nov. 2 to create the stem cell research program, requires the speaker's appointee come from a mental health disease advocacy group.
Twelve of the 29 citizens committee members have been named so far. The citizens oversight committee will award grants and loans from the $3 billion in state bond funds for stem cell research and oversee the operation of the new state agency Proposition 71 created.
Núñez, D-Los Angeles, also appointed John Hein, executive director of Communities for Quality Education, to the five-member financial accountability oversight committee for the stem cell program. Hein, 64, worked for 14 years at the California Teachers Association before joining the group earlier this year.
What's the rush? If this is truly a scientific enterprise, then they'd take as long as necessary to find the right person.
...the institute's decisions will be largely immune to review by the state Legislature or other government agencies. ...A former teachers union official from Fair Oaks to serve on its financial accountability panel...
Clearly, this has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with politics. So the taxpayers have to cough up the $3 billion, but their reps will never have any control. And a teachers union official handling finances? What a joke!
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