Liberal Talk Radio

The debate over Stem Cells will only get more interesting as time passes and medicine marches on. Right now, President Bush is siding with the Religious Right (and, to give him the benefit of the doubt, his own moral convictions) on the issue. But look at the fallout from the decision to limit research in the states:

“In some ways, this is even more important than their first study,” says stem cell researcher Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass. He notes that the South Koreans used about 17 eggs to create each line, as opposed to hundreds used in other experiments due to high failure rates. “Unfortunately, you’re going to see more and more stem cell breakthroughs like this occurring overseas,” he adds.

But…

There’s a long way to go before researchers find out whether they can safely turn embryonic cells into replacement tissues to treat diseases, Gearhart cautions.

Now that the debate is still about theoretical science, Bush can safely side with the Religious Right. But what happens when these breakthroughs start to yield profitable drugs and medical treatments? You can be sure that Big Pharma will lean heavily on their GOP allies (you know, the ones who gave them the Medicare Prescription Drug bonanza) to relax the regs on stem cells.

At that point one of two things will happen:

1. the GOP will cave to it’s corporate lobby, once again proving that the Religious Right is merely a populist facade for the party of rich white guys

2. Pharma companies will open up research facilities abroad, sucking talent and money away from the U.S., while we regress to a quasi-Medieval society

Now, I understand: Bush’s ban on stem cells only bans federal money for stem cells, which funds academic-type research. But, speaking as someone who’s worked briefly in biotech, the walls between academia and Big Pharma are paper-thin. Scientists shuffle back and forth between the two worlds rather easily. And if there’s little stem-cell research going on in the academic world, it will have a big impact on Pharma, because they won’t be able to recruit scientists who have trained in that field. Imagine if Wall Street had to recruit MBAs from a school that was forbidden to teach Econ: they’d be pretty miffed.

I have to laugh when I hear the President, when he’s bashing trade unions, say “I want to make America the most competitive country to do business.” Oh yeah? here’s three ideas for starters:

1. Universal health care, to relieve that burden from our companies
2. Better-funded schools to train smarter workers (and longer school years!)
3. More money for stem-cell research

(story via MyDD)