Roadblocks and Freeways for Interstate Collaboration In Stem Cell Reserach
Two dozen representatives from around the country met in Cambridge, MA last month to discuss interstate collaboration in stem cell research. The aim of the meeting was not to develop a model for each state, but rather to highlight the need for a systematic negotiation between states to allow collaboration and to unify the patchwork of currently existing regulations. Participants included representatives from California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, British and Canadian governments, and the International Society for Stem Cell Research. The meeting was closed to the public, and the Foundation for Consumer and Taxpayer Rights expressed concern that future meetings should remain open.
State policies differ in their ethical and legal reasoning; some have voted to completely ban all forms of human embryonic stem cell research, while others permit and encourage it. Problems between states arise regarding which stem cell lines are acceptable for use in research, how to make use of research data from other states, and how to coordinate collaboration on research. At this point, states are left to navigate between their own regulations, the regulations of other states, and the progress of their own science. Science Progress recently covered the state of research in Missouri and New Jersey.
The Massachusetts Public Health Council recently addressed the issue of interstate collaboration by changing the language of a regulation that might have criminalized the use of stem cell lines from other states derived for research purposes. Other states face similar obstacles. California prohibits paying women for their eggs (apart from basic expense reimbursement) and research on lines generated from paid-for eggs. Connecticut has more relaxed laws on the same issues, meaning that some lines used in Connecticut are prohibited from use in California research.
A recent Nature report explains that although a network of collaborating states would be a boon to research, such a network would distract from the need for a federal framework. (The Center for American Progress has also argued for national funding.) Given the federal prohibition on embryonic stem cell research funding, scientists wishing to investigate hES (outside of the approved lines and within the parameters of the Dickey Wicker Amendment) must use equipment and labs funded apart from the federal government. This requires that institutions receiving federal funding expend extra resources to maintain separate equipment for hES research. The Nature report concludes that while many researchers look to a new administration to change the system, this may not be the panacea they assume.
Warren Wollschlager, chief of the office of research and development in the Connecticut Department of Health, affirms, “By the time that the NIH comes to the table the states will be established funding sources.” Indeed, many state funding initiatives are well on track. But as Executive Director of the Alliance for Aging Research Daniel Perry says, “creating mini-NIH’s at the state level is, at best, a temporary solution,”
With the NIH budget for embryonic stem cell research for the fiscal year 2007 set at $37 million—far below that of many private donors in the states—it is apparent that any federal progress for this research will come at a later date.
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