Calif. Stem Cell Agency Fights for Life

People actually fighting against the job delivery machine...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The future of embryonic stem cell research could be shaped in a suburban courtroom where two taxpayer groups are challenging the legality of California's new agency dedicated to the controversial field.

Opening statements were scheduled for Monday in a pair of lawsuits seeking to invalidate the law that created the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which is authorized to hand out $3 billion in research grants. The lawsuits allege - among other things - that it violates a state constitutional mandate that the spending of taxpayer dollars be under state control.

"The act delegates the disbursal of huge sums of public money to the unfettered discretion of an institution whose governing board and working groups are unaccountable to the public," one of the lawsuits said.

When voters created the institute in November 2004, stem cell scientists saw it as giving new traction to a field hamstrung by federal limitations on funding.

link to full AP article