CGS-authored
In less than two weeks, California voters will decide whether they will buy what is offered in the $20 million advocacy campaign for Proposition 71. If passed, this proposition would allow the state to issue $3 billion in bonds to establish a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
The voters are being asked to place a multibillion-dollar bet on a still wholly speculative line of scientific exploration, embryonic stem cell research. Whether anything comes of this research, it is sure to line the pockets of many scientists and biotechnology companies in the process. It's a win-win situation for the advocates, but a very bad use of public money.
The campaign to pass this initiative features just the kind of heavy-hitters and deep-pocket financing designed to overcome public hesitations: millionaires with sick children, Nobel laureates, profit-making corporations, impaired celebrities and hucksters who tout the economic benefits to California.
The appeal is meant to capture the public's emotions rather than their minds. It talks about the millions of lives that might someday be saved from cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease (over...
The voters are being asked to place a multibillion-dollar bet on a still wholly speculative line of scientific exploration, embryonic stem cell research. Whether anything comes of this research, it is sure to line the pockets of many scientists and biotechnology companies in the process. It's a win-win situation for the advocates, but a very bad use of public money.
The campaign to pass this initiative features just the kind of heavy-hitters and deep-pocket financing designed to overcome public hesitations: millionaires with sick children, Nobel laureates, profit-making corporations, impaired celebrities and hucksters who tout the economic benefits to California.
The appeal is meant to capture the public's emotions rather than their minds. It talks about the millions of lives that might someday be saved from cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease (over...