It’s good news that the anti-stem cell research petition initiative is dead. For the time being. But ain’t that the kicker? Even when the flat earthers lose, they win, because as long as they vow to try it again, what sensible SCNT (somatic cell nuclear transfer) research company is going to locate in this state?
Yes, the initiative is dead for this year. Here’s how it happened. Last winter, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan rewrote the initiative’s ballot language making it clear that it would repeal “Missouri patients access to stem cell therapies and cures” and that it would no longer permit “Missouri researchers to conduct stem cell research in accordance with federal law”.
The petition’s sponsors, Cures without Cloning, sued to have the original, doublespeak language reinstated. They won the first round in court but just lost the appeal and don’t have time (before Sunday evening) to collect a couple of hundred thousand signatures on the revised petition.
Sorry.
Donn Rubin, of Missourians for Lifesaving Cures, makes the issue even clearer than Carnahan did:
“If successful, this dangerous proposal would imprison doctors, scientists and patients merely for seeking to cure afflictions affecting our loved ones, friends and fellow Missourians. And if treatments and cures were found in other states, they would be denied to patients here in Missouri.”
So is the matter settled now? As if.
2010, here we come, says Lori Buffa of Cures without Cloning. Putting up with her group’s bi-annual petitions is like owning an angry Pekingese: he won’t kill any of your guests, but they’ll think twice about coming to visit.
It does Missouri little good to have Washington University, one of the leaders in mapping the human genome. If your company, specializing in SCNT research, was looking for a good place to locate, you’d think Wash. U.–ooh, a great pool of talent to draw on. But do I really want to sweat bullets every two years, wondering if the anti-science zealots are going to put me out of business? No thanks.
And so our legislature is trying to lure a manufacturing corporation, Bombardier–more about how ill-judged that deal is in the next day or so–instead of a high tech company. In the high tech revolution, Missouri will be left in the fourteenth century.