California voters have re-upped their support for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) with $5.5 billion in new funding. Voters cast just north of the required 50% ‘yes’ votes needed for Proposition 14 to pass in a state-wide referendum on the ballot in November.
CIRM was created in 2004 after Californians voted to approved a similar measure (Proposition 71) to fund stem cell research, which created a regenerative medicine juggernaut a with 11 state-of-the-art research facilities, a network of clinical trial sites, and billions of dollars in funding for research up and down the state. Whereas back then a ban on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research was in place, no such ban exists today. Undeterred by that, nor by the fiscal crisis caused by the pandemic and the wildfires that have ravaged the state, the CIRM backers — principally real estate developer Robert Klein, mastermind of Proposition 71 — made a renewed bid for taxpayers’ money to rescue the agency. California voters were asked to approve another $5.5 billion dollars ($8 billion with interest), as its original $3 billion was about to run out. The margin of victory was smaller this time — 51% versus 59% — as was the number of luminaries that the proponents trotted out in support. Proposition 14 has also broadened the scope of the research, earmarking $1.5 billion for neurological diseases. It also increases the size of the governing board from 29 to 35 people. The governance, and in particular the composition of the board, has been criticized. Instead of recrafting the board to eliminate conflicts of interest, the new measure expands the board so that a quorum can be maintained after members with conflicts are recused. Among people speaking out against Proposition 14 were the first CIRM president, Zach Hall; former board member Jeff Sheehy; and the editorial boards of many of the state’s largest newspapers.
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