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Category Archives: Stem Cells

Flim-Flam Stem Cell Artists Targeted by CIRM

The California stem cell agency has
joined with other prestigious stem cell organizations to help put a
stop to the flim-flam artists that prey on desperate people by
promising miracle cures from stem cell treatments.
The agency announced the action today on its blog, declaring that it has posted a new patient advisory document that provides a “ robust and detailed set of issues
patients should consider when making treatment decisions.”
Don Gibbons, CIRM's senior science and
education communications officer and author of the blog item, said
the document addresses one of his special concerns: Internet “ads
that come up on web searches and seem to be offering everything to
everyone.”
Some of those ads can be found on many stem cell-related web sites, including this one, that carry ads that are placed there
automatically by Google.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/MsXTjRpEcFY/flim-flam-stem-cell-artists-targeted-by.html

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California Stem Cell Researchers to Receive $70 Million Next Week

The California stem cell agency is
scheduled to give away $70 million next week as it moves forward on
its efforts to turn research into cures.
As many as 20 grants and loans are
projected to be awarded in the early translation round. The awards will range up to $3.5 million over a three year period.  The round was open to
both businesses and academic institutions. Collaborators from Germany
were involved, although funding for research in that country is not provided by the state stem cell agency.
The applications will come before
the $3 billion agency's governing board at its Aug. 28 meeting in La Jolla. After next week's awards, the agency, which is known as CIRM,  will have about $500
million left to hand out before cash for new awards runs out in 2017.
The agency is currently examining ways to continue its awards with
some sort of public-private partnership.
Also on the board's agenda is a
proposed announcement for a CIRM/industry co-funding agreement. No
further details on that program were available early today on the agenda.
Other matters to be considered include final approval of the changes
in the agency's IP regulations, appointment of new members to the
grant review group and the latest report on the outside contracts
held by the agency. Details on those matters are yet to be posted by
the agency.
A tribute to the late Duane Roth,
co-vice chairman of the agency, is also scheduled. The board will
additionally meet behind closed doors to evaluate the performance of
CIRM President Alan Trounson.
The California Stem Cell Report will
carry more information on the meeting as it becomes available.
In addition to the La Jolla location
for the meeting, other locations where the public can take part in
the meeting are in Menlo Park and Duarte. Specific addresses can be
found on the agenda.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/rt53_NIUkj8/california-stem-cell-researchers-to.html

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'Butter and Eggs Money" and a Gubernatorial Veto

Nancy
Scheper-Hughes
, professor of medical anthropology at UC Berkeley and
director of Organ
s
Watch
, is one of the opponents of the legislation that would have
permitted women to sell their eggs for research. Today she filed the
following comment on the “troubling mindset” item on the
California Stem Cell Report.

Jerry Brown's
veto of AB
926
which would allow young women to be paid for multiple egg extractions
for scientific research is one for the gals.  In western Ireland
women secreted away their
'butter
and eggs
'
money in anticipation of hard times. In my day every smart girl had
her 'mad money' to escape a bad situation. Secret cash for young
women is a great idea, but not when it turns on multiple cycles of
pumping powerful hormones associated (in other contexts) with ovarian
cancer into young women's bodies to produce 30 or 60 eggs a month.
That's not promoting gender equity no matter what some of our best
Democratic women leaders have to say. Selling sperm and selling eggs
are a totally different matter. One  is pleasurable and safe,
the other is a complicated and invasive procedure. We need good
science and good research and  freedom of choice and action. We
also need protection from false advertising. There are no
evidence based, long term studies of the effects of these hormone
injections on women ten or twenty years after the fact. Let's fund
those needed longitudinal and cohort studies and hope for the best.
In the meantime, women had best stick to 'butter and eggs' money. It
doesn't pay a lot, but it's less painful and a heck of a lot safer.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/gMworjXp5x0/butter-and-eggs-money-and-gubernatorial.html

Posted in Stem Cell Therapy, Stem Cells | Comments Off on 'Butter and Eggs Money" and a Gubernatorial Veto

‘Butter and Eggs Money” and a Gubernatorial Veto

Nancy
Scheper-Hughes
, professor of medical anthropology at UC Berkeley and
director of Organ
s
Watch
, is one of the opponents of the legislation that would have
permitted women to sell their eggs for research. Today she filed the
following comment on the “troubling mindset” item on the
California Stem Cell Report.

Jerry Brown's
veto of AB
926
which would allow young women to be paid for multiple egg extractions
for scientific research is one for the gals.  In western Ireland
women secreted away their
'butter
and eggs
'
money in anticipation of hard times. In my day every smart girl had
her 'mad money' to escape a bad situation. Secret cash for young
women is a great idea, but not when it turns on multiple cycles of
pumping powerful hormones associated (in other contexts) with ovarian
cancer into young women's bodies to produce 30 or 60 eggs a month.
That's not promoting gender equity no matter what some of our best
Democratic women leaders have to say. Selling sperm and selling eggs
are a totally different matter. One  is pleasurable and safe,
the other is a complicated and invasive procedure. We need good
science and good research and  freedom of choice and action. We
also need protection from false advertising. There are no
evidence based, long term studies of the effects of these hormone
injections on women ten or twenty years after the fact. Let's fund
those needed longitudinal and cohort studies and hope for the best.
In the meantime, women had best stick to 'butter and eggs' money. It
doesn't pay a lot, but it's less painful and a heck of a lot safer.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/gMworjXp5x0/butter-and-eggs-money-and-gubernatorial.html

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Bonilla: Veto of Pay-for-Eggs Bill Shows Troubling Mindset

A Democratic state legislator today
assailed Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown's “mindset” as “particularly
troubling” in his veto of legislation that would have allowed women
to sell their eggs for scientific research.
The statement came from Assemblywoman
Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, in response to Brown's action on her
fertility-industry sponsored bill, AB926, which would have removed a
ban on compensation for women who provide eggs for research.
Susan Bonilla
Photo from California Legislature
Brown cited health risks and other issues and said in his veto message,

“Not everything in life is for sale
nor should it be.”

Alex Matthews, writing on Capitol
Weekly,
quoted Bonilla as saying,

“It (the governor's veto) shows a
glaring inconsistency...The veto statement was very overreaching in
the fact that it was making very broad statements about what women
should be able to do, and while it's not legislation it certainly
goes to a mindset that the governor has that I find particularly
troubling.”

Bonilla continued,

“Market-driven compensation of donors
by donor agencies and prospective parents continues unchecked.”

In a statement on her website, Bonilla
said the governor's veto “is a regressive action that denies
thousands of women the prospect of medical fertility breakthroughs.”
She said,

“Many women...will be denied hope and
the possibility of giving birth to a child because research on their
behalf has been halted in California.”

Bonilla has argued that women involved
in egg-related research, such as that involving stem cells, should
be compensated, just as men are for their sperm. Women who provide
eggs for fertility purposes can be legally compensated up to any
amount. The current market runs about $10,000 or so per egg cycle but can be much
higher.
Bonilla's measure would not have
affected a ban on compensation involving research funded by the $3
billion California stem cell agency. It would have taken a 70 percent
vote of each house to alter that restriction, compared to a simple
majority for Bonilla's bill. The super, super-majority requirement
was written into state law by Proposition 71, the measure that
created the stem cell agency.
Bonilla did not indicate whether she
would attempt to override the governor's veto, which would require a
2/3 vote of each house.
One of the opponents of the bill, the
Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, called the veto a
“welcome development.”
Diane Tober, associate executive
director of the center, said,

“It would be unconscionable to
expand the commercial market in women’s eggs without obtaining
significantly more information about the risks of retrieving them.” 

Here are links to other stories today
on the veto of the bill: Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, an
additional story from late yesterday on Capitol Weekly, TheAssociated Press and National Review.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/j0Fm9p1Ac64/bonilla-veto-of-pay-for-eggs-bill-shows.html

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California Gov. Jerry Brown Vetoes Pay-for-Eggs Legislation

California Gov. Jerry Brown today
vetoed a fertility industry-backed measure that would have permitted
women to sell their eggs for the purposes of scientific research.
In his veto message, Brown said,

“Not everything in life is for sale
nor should it be.”

The bill would have repealed a ban on
compensation of women who provide their eggs for scientific purposes.
The measure would not have changed existing law that allows women to
be paid for their eggs for IVF purposes with fees that range up to
$50,000. The bill also would not have affected the ban on compensation for
eggs for research that is financed by the $3 billion California stem
cell agency.
The legislation (AB926) by
Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Concord, was sponsored by the American
Society for Reproductive Medicine
and easily swept through the Democratic-dominated legislature. Bonilla said the measure would have placed women on an
equal footing with men, who are paid for their sperm contributions
for research. She also said that it would help to encourage more
research into fertility issues.
Some stem cell scientists have
complained that not enough women are willing to donate eggs without
compensation, but stem cell researchers were not publicly involved in
supporting the bill.
The fertility industry group had
confidently predicted that Brown, a Democrat like Bonilla, would sign the bill. The governor's
action could be overridden by a 2/3 vote of each house of the
Legislature. It is not clear whether Bonilla will make such an
attempt.
Here is the text of Brown's veto
message:

"Not everything in life is for sale
nor should it be.

"This bill would legalize the payment of
money in exchange for a woman submitting to invasive procedures to
stimulate, extract and harvest her eggs for scientific research.

"The questions raised here are not
simple; they touch matters that are both personal and philosophical.

"In medical procedures of this kind,
genuinely informed consent is difficult because the long-term risks
are not adequately known. Putting thousands of dollars on the table
only compounds the problem.

"Six years ago the Legislature, by
near unanimity, enacted the prohibition that this bill now seeks to
reverse. After careful review of the materials which both supporters
and opponents submitted, I do not find sufficient reason to change
course.

"I am returning this bill without my
signature."

You can read more about the bill and
its history here, here, here and here.

Source:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/uqpFc/~3/1eDn2Is8V8E/california-gov-jerry-brown-vetoes-pay.html

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