Stem-Cell Brain Drain

by Chris Bowers, Fri Dec 17, 2004 at 09:30:35 AM EST

Pro-stem cell research blue states are poised to suck anti-stem cell red states dry of biomedical research talent: Three years after President Bush announced restrictions on federally funded medical research using stem cells from human embryos, a California panel will meet today to begin the process of granting $3 billion in state money to stem cell researchers.(...)

New Jersey, Wisconsin and Illinois are budgeting taxpayer dollars or proposing California-style initiatives to try to prevent a brain drain of biomedical researchers to the West Coast. (Advanced Cell Technologies, a Worcester, Mass., company, is shopping for land in Northern California to build a branch facility.)

Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes, a Democrat, will ask the Legislature next year to place on the ballot a proposal to grant researchers $1 billion. The money would be raised by a new tax on Botox injections, liposuction and other "vanity" treatments.

In Texas, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has asked Gov. Rick Perry, a fellow Republican, to do what it takes to prevent California from stealing scientific luminaries from medical research centers in Houston. Pro-research bills are likely to be considered next year by legislatures in Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire and Washington state.

Social conservatives in several other states are fighting embryonic stem cell research. Eight states - Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia - now ban or limit such research. All but one, Michigan, were "red states" that backed Bush in this year's elections. South Dakota passed the most recent ban, in February.

Next year, legislators in Missouri, Kansas and Louisiana will consider barring at least some types of embryonic stem cell research.

Conservative opposition to scientific research has clear economic consequences. Missouri, Kansas and Louisiana will pass such bills to their own economic detriment. Now, I know that through our discussions of works such as Brad Carson's essay on his Senate campaign, What's the Matter With Kansas, by Thomas Frank, and Don't Think of An Elephant by George Lakoff, we have learned ad nauseum how many social conservatives, even poor and working class social conservatives, do not care about the economic impact of their policies. However, at the very least, the huge damage that these policies wreck on our economy should serve as a wake-up call to libertarians, reformers and ideological moderates everywhere. Innovation and entrepreneurship are liberal values. Stagnation and regression are conservative values.

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kay bailey

this sounds like another manuever on KBH's part to set herself up to run against perry.

i mean honestly, does anyone here think that a stem cell research bill would pass in texas?!?!? LOL. man that's funny.

but seriously, good for the states that are taking the initiative.

by annatopia 2004-12-17 09:36AM | 0 recs

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Re: kay bailey

You still down in Texas Anna? Kay Baily sems very popular down there, but also opposed to much of the conservtive agenda. How does that one work?

by Chris Bowers 2004-12-17 09:38AM | 0 recs

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yes chris, i'm still here unfortunately ;)

basically, if you're a republican, it's not hard to maintain your popularity. the GOP really has a chokehold on my state. i'm not kidding when i say that simply putting an R next to your name can almost ensure one's election.

now there are some repubs who've gotten in trouble lately, and perry is one of them. but it took like three years for people in the GOP to realise what a doofus he is.

as for kay, yea she is pretty popular. i honestly don't understand why. i've disliked her ever since her first debate during her first senate run when she got a question about deficits. she sweetly turned to the camera smiling and said in her most twangy texas tone, "we-ell, ah jus' don' thi-ink we need inny new tax-ezzzz." that pretty much sealed her election right there. and since then she's done a good job of playing ball with the texas GOP power structure. she was basically a phill gramm syncophant during her first term, and now she's our senior senator. her husband also had long standing ties to the state GOP, so i think that's part of the reason she's so popular.

her somewhat pro-choice stance doesn't effect her very much here, but it would be interesting to see how that plays out if she runs against anti-choice perry for governor next time around. personally i do not think she will give up her senate seat to run for governor. but even if she ran and won it wouldn't be that big of a deal. the governor here isn't that powerful; they are basically a figurehead.

god, i really have rambled on, haven't i? sorry bout that.

by annatopia 2004-12-17 10:02AM | 0 recs

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Re: yes chris, i'm still here unfortunately ;)

I was quite surprised to see KBH come out in favor of stem cell research. I think that it will hurt her in a GOP primary against Perry. Stems cells are probably a winning issue in a general election, but not in a GOP primary.

by ByronUT 2004-12-17 11:49AM | 0 recs

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Re: yes chris, i'm still here unfortunately ;)

agreed. as you well know byron, the folks running our state's GOP are uber-right wing.

by annatopia 2004-12-17 12:13PM | 0 recs

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Yes!

Which is why I have argued that we should include "innovation" and a frame of "Entreprenuerial America" (versus "Middle America") in our rebranded party identity and core values.

Main Street versus the corrupt, big government fat cats who stifle American prosperity and the pioneering spirit. This is how you win the West: the new battleground.

I've written a little more about this here.

by Pachacutec 2004-12-17 09:39AM | 0 recs

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Entrepreneurial

I think that word rings false. For me, but also for the whole Daily Show audience. If you only get 10 words to describe views of the entire Democratic Party, and one of them is Entrepreneurial, people like me will think you're a poser. Indeed it's very 90s, I'd probably think you were the kind of poser who cheats on his wife with young interns.

"Economic Progress," however, I think is a good phrase (it's daunte's).

by conchis 2004-12-17 06:08PM | 0 recs

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Re: Entrepreneurial

I'm not wedded to the language, but I'd very much like to see us capture the theme of being the ones who innovate, try new things and feul the growth and prosperity of the country. Because, after all, it's true.

by Pachacutec 2004-12-18 05:53AM | 0 recs

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Univ of Iowa Hospitals

has had 7 of their most widely respected doctors leave because of the restraints on research.

by demiowa 2004-12-17 09:57AM | 0 recs

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Another conservative attack on business

There was an budding, energetic, potentially very profitable film industry in Colorado, but after the anti-gay referendum passed a few years back (and later, of course, was thrown out by the courts), it packed up, left, and really never came back.

by Denver 2004-12-17 10:18AM | 0 recs

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hopeful, strong, productive side of globalization

It was widely observed in the late 1990s that the technological revolution and the internet would cause two major strains of reaction. One reaction would be fear, anti-modernism and cynicism in the form of all kinds of exploitation, terror and the general mayhem that comes from a cheap, barrier free communication medium.

The other reaction, however, was more hopeful. Bill Clinton understood this very well (I am speaking here less of his policies and more of his arguments as a politician and commentator). He emphasized and recognized the challenges of the new information technology revolution and particularly the difficulties it presents for people participating in sectors of the economy prone to degrade under the new globalized system. But, he said that we should face these challenges with tools and with strength. Government would play a role in providing tools for innovation in a new limitless economy.

Bill Clinton's globalized world was inclusive, collaborative and challenging, but optimistic. The conservative globalized world envisions the barbarians poised to sac Rome anew. People may fear that, but are they really driven to excel by emphasizing that fear? If you look at the economy under Bush, it appears that the answer is a resounding no. Chris is right, we stand for the values that work in the new economy and the values that foster the great cooperation and collaboration possible under these new conditions. They want to wall people off, just like during the Cold War. My diary has some things to say about our economic message in relation to Lakoff's book. I am planning to do a whole series on this topic.

by Garemko 2004-12-17 10:28AM | 0 recs

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Let them eat Red State cake!

I read an article somewhere that suggested the economic disparity between the south and the north could be explained as the continuing legacy of the Civil War. The carpet-bagging in the South and some legislation that compelled industry to locate in the North is still having an adverse economic impact.

I suspect it may have something to do with their anti-science agenda as well. The creationism phenomena is creeping north, but it has it's center in the south. If they want to shoot themselves in the foot, there's not much we can do to stop them.

by Gary Boatwright 2004-12-17 10:44AM | 0 recs

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Red States, Swing States

I bet pro-stem-cell research initiatives would be successful in a number of swing and red states. Older people know the value of health care, my guess is a Florida stem-cell initiative would be a great way to get older liberals to come to the polls.

This would be all the more appealing if such initiatives didn't also involve the spending of money. What do we do about this?

Forgive my ignorance, but does anyone know how stem-cell research is viewed within the Hispanic community(ies)?

by conchis 2004-12-17 02:23PM | 0 recs

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Poor but pure

It is entirely pointless to try to tell a Red that Christian-totalitarian policies are going to demolish the economy and impoverish him personally. He actively wants the first, and is perfectly prepared to endure the second. It is a fair trade to him.

by Frank Wilhoit 2004-12-17 05:03PM | 0 recs

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demolish the economy

It is not that conservatives do not care that there are economic effects of their policies, it is that (on this issue) (some) conservatives think that (some) other matters are more important than their personal wealth or health.

There is a peculiar dissonance in that many liberals are happy, not without good evidence, to castigate the Republicans as the Party of Greed rather than being the Party of Moral Values, and then turn around and complain that voters are voting against their own economic interests by voting Republican. Oddly, even though many Republicans do believe that their economic policies are in the long run in everyone's best interest, I do not encounter large numbers of Republicans who castigate Democratic Party voters for voting against their economic interests by voting against the Republicans.

Is voting against economic interest reasonable?
Consider the short story by iirc LeGuin "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" about a mythical place where voters do put their economic interests first, in the sense that for a certain small price that affects almost no one in the city the place is prosperous, healthy, beautiful,... The mechanism by which the price works is not specified. The small price is that a small child is removed from its parents, thrown in a small room, starved, beaten, tortured,...fortunately, the author left the details to the readers' imaginations...until it curls up and dies, at which point another child is removed.... There are a certain number of people who find this unaccepatable, and are those who are named in the title of the tale. I expect that readers on this list would find the tale's price to be totally unacceptable, even though it would cost them nothing to pay, and if asked to install it in the USA would vote against it no matter the economic cost.

by phillies 2004-12-18 05:27AM | 0 recs

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Very clever...

...very skillfully done, and VERY dishonest.

Do not try to convince me that you place any value upon MY life. You will shoot me in the back, the moment you are perfectly certain that you can get away with it.

by Frank Wilhoit 2004-12-19 02:27PM | 0 recs