Good News, Bad News and the California Stem Cell Agency

The comment was thoughtful and pointed
out that “almost all the time” the agency “has done the right
thing.” The reader made the remarks in the context of continuing
coverage of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report that found there
were major flaws in CIRM's operations. (The reader's comment can be found here at the end of the post.)

Given the reader's remarks, it seems a
good time to review the operating principles and biases of the
California Stem Cell Report.

Bias No. 1: Openness and transparency
come first in any government operation. They are
fundamental to the integrity of all government enterprises. Bias No.
2: The California stem cell agency is generally doing a good job at
funding stem cell research. We generally favor all manner of stem cell research. 

Regarding our operating principles, the
goal is report news and information about the agency along with
analysis and explanation. One key to understanding what this blog
does is to understand what news is. News by definition is almost
always “bad” as opposed to “good.” News deals with the
exceptional. It is not news that millions of drivers commute to work
safely each day on California freeways. It is news when one is killed
in a traffic accident.

The California Stem Cell Report also
tries to fill information voids. We understand that the stem cell
agency believes certain information is not in their best interests to
disclose. Such is always the case with both private and public
organizations. However, it is generally in the public interest to see
more information rather less, particularly information that an
organization would rather not see become public.

Analysis and explanation of what the stem cell agency does is rare in the California media and even less seen
nationally or internationally. This blog focuses primarily on the
public policy aspects of the agency – not the science. The agency
is an unprecedented experiment that brings together big science, big
government, big academia, big business, religion, morality, ethics,
life and death in single enterprise – one that operates outside the
normal constraints of state agencies. No governor can cut CIRM's
budget. Nor can the legislature. Even tiny changes in Proposition 71,
which created CIRM, require either another vote of the people or the
super, super-majority vote of both houses of the legislature and the signature of the governor. All of
this is the result of the initiative process – a well-intended tool
that has been abused and that has also created enormous problems for the
state of California that go well beyond the stem cell agency.

Then there is the funding of the
agency, which basically lives off the state's credit card. All the
money that goes for grants is borrowed and roughly doubles the actual
expense to taxpayers.

Since January 2005, we have posted
3,452 items on the stem cell agency because we believe the California
Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is an important enterprise
– one that deserves more attention that it receives in the
mainstream media. Our readership includes persons at the NIH, the
National Academy of Sciences, most of the major stem cell research
centers in California, academic institutions in the Great Britain,
Canada, Norway, Germany, Russia, China, Australia, Singapore and
Korea – not to mention the agency itself and scientific journals.

We do not attempt to replicate what the
California stem cell agency itself does, which is to post online a
prodigious amount of positive stories and good news about the agency.
To do so would serve no useful public purpose and would simply be
repetitive. That said, there is room to acknowledge the work that the
agency does, particularly the staff, but also the board. We try to
point that out from time to time.

The California Stem Cell Report also
welcomes and encourages comments, anonymous and otherwise. Directors
and executives of the agency have a standing invitation to comment at
length and have their remarks published verbatim, something almost
never seen in the mainstream media.

Finally, given the questions raised by
the Institute of Medicine about disclosure of potential conflicts of
interests, the author of this blog and his immediate family have no
financial interests in any biotech or stem cell companies, other than
those that may be held by large mutual funds. We have no relatives
working in the field. We do have the potential personal conflicts,
cited generally by the IOM in connection with some CIRM board
members, involving relatives who have afflictions that could be
possibly be treated with stem cell therapies in the distant future.