Public Banned from ‘Best Stem Cell Meeting in the World’

More than 500 persons are at the meeting at an undisclosed location, including some
representatives of biotech firms. And the meeting is even being
written about on the internet by a blogger. But the $3 billion
California stem cell agency says the public is not allowed in because
some of the information is “proprietary.”

CIRM President Alan Trounson addressed
the meeting earlier this week and declared it was “the best stem
cell meeting in the world,” according to UC Davis researcher Paul
Knoepfler, who is reporting from the session on his blog.

The attendees consist almost entirely
of the recipients of taxpayer-funded grants given by the stem cell agency  although a number of
businesses have been brought in.. CIRM, which is paying for the gathering,  says of the annual sessions,

Kevin McCormack, spokesman for the
agency, today said the public was barred from the meeting, which ends tomorrow, because “so
many presentations/talks (are) using proprietary information.”

That rationale is nothing new in the
world of science. But there is no chance of maintaining secrecy about anything that is
truly proprietary when hundreds of people have access to it in
this sort of forum. No penalties exist for disclosure, plus the whole
point of the session is to share information.

Yesterday we wrote briefly about the importance of transparency and openness in government, and make no mistake about
it, the stem cell agency is a government operation. We doubt that
anything egregious is underway at the session, but closing it to the
public is a reminder about where the agency's priorities lie.