CGS-authored
California voters approved a stem-cell initiative known as Proposition 71 on November 2. But only recently has anyone gotten around to analyzing the fine print.
The law, which passed with 59% of the vote and vocal support from Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, authorizes $3 billion in bonds to pay for new research and facilities. And even though the interest rate will double the ultimate cost over 10 years, backers of the initiative said that the money raised from the bonds won_t cost the state anything for the first five.
Or so most Californians thought before a recent report in the San Francisco Chronicle noting that the Prop. 71 campaign misrepresented the measure in major ways. In fact, says the paper, _Interest payments will begin immediately, paid out of the bond money itself_meaning that tens to hundreds of millions of _research_ dollars must be used to pay debt service._
Moreover, the law says the research money doesn_t even have to be spent on embryonic stem-cell studies. It can go to _other scientific and medical research and technologies_ to be determined by...
The law, which passed with 59% of the vote and vocal support from Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, authorizes $3 billion in bonds to pay for new research and facilities. And even though the interest rate will double the ultimate cost over 10 years, backers of the initiative said that the money raised from the bonds won_t cost the state anything for the first five.
Or so most Californians thought before a recent report in the San Francisco Chronicle noting that the Prop. 71 campaign misrepresented the measure in major ways. In fact, says the paper, _Interest payments will begin immediately, paid out of the bond money itself_meaning that tens to hundreds of millions of _research_ dollars must be used to pay debt service._
Moreover, the law says the research money doesn_t even have to be spent on embryonic stem-cell studies. It can go to _other scientific and medical research and technologies_ to be determined by...