LANSING – The group opposing the embryonic stem cell research ballot question in Michigan will not be challenging signatures as the deadline approaches, a spokesperson said during a Monday meeting introducing the opposition group’s co-chairs. Instead, opponents will focus their efforts to convince voters to oppose the proposal.
Dave Doyle, speaking for Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science and Experimentation (www.micause.com), said proponents of the ballot issue had spent $2 million to get the signatures and there was no real point in challenging the 569,576 signatures.
The deadline to challenge petitions is 5 p.m., Wednesday.
August 21 is the tentative date when the Board of State Canvassers will determine if the embryonic and Reform Michigan Government Now! proposals do go to the November ballot and attempt at that time to draft ballot language for the two proposals.
Instead of challenging signatures, Mr. Doyle and co-chairs Sen. Tom George (R-Kalamazoo) and health care activist Patricia McDonald are fighting on the merits of the proposal.
MI CAUSE advocates pointed to two main areas of opposition: cloning and legislative prerogative.
On the cloning front they attacked claims made by embryonic stem cell proponents who have said the proposal strengthens Michigan’s anti-cloning laws. The first sentence of the proposal’s language reads: “Nothing in this section shall alter Michigan’s current prohibition on human cloning.”
Proponents of embryonic research say the word “current” in the proposal refers to the position of the Legislature right now, while opponents say it is a moving target that can refer to any position the Legislature takes in the future.
“We think it was very cleverly worded to say current. It makes you think one thing when it doesn’t really say it,” Doyle said.
Former U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz, who supports expanding embryonic research, said the proposal would not strengthen human cloning provisions but would not dilute them either and that having legislation of some form would in effect strengthen anti-cloning provisions.
George, an anesthelogist, strongly voices the other major objection MI CAUSE has with the proposal: “Why would the people of Michigan want to cede their ability to place any further oversight in this area?”
Saying other industries had not asked for this type of blanket hands-off approach, George said Bill Gates never asked Michigan to stay out of Internet regulation or oversight.
The two sides don’t agree on what degree of embryonic stem cell research is currently allowed in Michigan. A 1978 state act banned use of embryos for “nontherapeutic research …” and a 2001 federal order bans federal money from being used in embryonic stem cell research. In the 1990s, Michigan specifically banned human cloning. Several other states, proponents of the proposal say there are 45, allow greater discretion for those who use fertility clinics to give their embryos to science.
McDonald said the research is currently allowed in Michigan and is going on at the University of Michigan and that the state has at least 40 researchers working on embryonic stem cells right now.
Schwarz said that is disingenuous since the single room at U-M dedicated to embryonic research is paid for completely from private sources and all the lines they worked with had been corrupted and could never be used in humans.
He did acknowledge that some sort of research has been going on in Michigan but said others in the country and around the world are lapping the state, pointing to California, New York, India, China, Russia and more.
McDonald also brought up California, where media reports indicate that researchers are paying women for their embryos, something the ballot language does not restrict.
George said the lack of prohibitions on selling eggs would induce people to sell their bodies for medical treatment and regulations prevent people from selling parts such as kidneys in Michigan, but might not in somewhere such as India. That’s why he supports stronger state regulation on the issue.
George gave the examples of a consent form for a mastectomy in Michigan, which requires a “more structured disclosure.”
He also pointed to Michigan’s refusal to sterilize mentally ill patients despite federal financial and legal support (sanctioned by the Supreme Court in 1927 and shot down there in 1942) as an example of when states should exercise greater regulation than the federal government. Michigan was the first state to introduce sterilization legislation in 1897, but it never became law.
McDonald has been involved with health care for almost 30 years and was the CEO of a health care group up until a year ago. She was diagnosed in August 2006 with stage four metastatic cancer and given only months to live. She’s quite obviously not dead two years later and frets about research dollars being wasted unproductively.
“I want a cure so I want these dollars to be used in the best possible way,” she said.
McDonald said whatever a person’s position on the issue, she favors cautious action to avoid rushing a decision that could lead to Michigan becoming a “Frankenstein state,” where private scientists or even amateurs could freely clone or otherwise abuse embryonic stem cells.
She said could not point to any state she considers to be a “Frankenstein” state but said that prohibiting the Legislature from addressing further complications could lead Michigan there.
MI CAUSE representatives said approving regulation now means that issues such as the mixing of human DNA with animal DNA (citing British scientists who use cow eggs to germinate stem cells) could not be controlled by the state in the future.
McDonald cited a list of 73 cures or treatments made by adult stem cells, compared to zero treatments or cures from embryonic stem cells. The list, which dozens of House candidates have cited this summer in interviews with Gongwer News Service, has been distributed by Right to Life of Michigan and was produced by Do No Harm.
Schwarz said the list is disingenuous since adult stem cells have been used for more than 50 years while embryonic cells are barely 10 years old and have not had as much financial support for research, much less federal funding since 2001.
Plus, only seven of those 70 or so cures or treatments have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and several embryonic cases are nearing approval, said Marcia Baum, director of Michigan Citizens for Stem Cell Research and Cures, which does not support or oppose any ballot issues.
Doyle, citing University of Rochester information, said that embryonic stem cells have been proven to create tumors and could prove unusable.
Schwarz countered, saying the exact same thing of the alternative Doyle cited, induced pluripotent stem cells, which are skin cells invaded by a virus resulting in similar qualities to embryonic stem cells.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
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