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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A controversial California ballot measure that would fund a decade of stem cell research with $3 billion in state money was headed for a resounding victory on Wednesday, initial returns showed.
The initiative, which was endorsed by popular California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a move that put him at odds with his Republican party and the Bush administration, was carrying 59 percent of the vote with about 74 percent of precincts reporting.
Backers of the measure say the funding program would jump start scientific work that could help cure diseases and establish California as a hub for leading-edge research on a par with Singapore and Britain.
The stem cell measure had been closely watched nationally, and attracted even wider attention after the sudden death of paralyzed actor and stem cell research advocate Christopher Reeve.
Meanwhile, actor and "Passion of the Christ" filmmaker Mel Gibson came out against the measure, which had also been opposed by the Catholic church and groups that argued it would divert money from more urgent causes.
The California ballot initiative would establish a pool of money that would dwarf other U.S. public funding for such research.
The measure, known as Proposition 71, would float $3 billion in tax-exempt bonds to set up an Institute for Regenerative Medicine and fund 10 years of research.
It would also establish a constitutional right within California to conduct stem cell research while outlawing research on reproductive cloning.
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By ANDREW POLLACK
Published: November 4, 2004
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 3 - Tuesday's vote by Californians to spend $3 billion on human embryonic stem cell research could speed progress on the promising but controversial field and make the state the epicenter of such research.
"This is going to be the stem cell center of the world, not just the country," said Evan Snyder, director of the program in stem cell biology at the Burnham Institute in San Diego.
The ballot measure, Proposition 71, will prompt the establishment of a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which will become the largest single backer of research in stem cells - a field that scientists hope might eventually be used to create new brain cells for patients with Parkinson's disease, or insulin-producing cells for diabetics, or treatments for numerous other diseases.
The $300 million the institute plans to dispense in each of the next 10 years, generated by the sale of bonds, would dwarf the $25 million spent last year by the main backer of medical research, the National Institutes of Health, on research involving stem cells derived from human embryos. It would easily exceed the $190 million spent by the N.I.H. last year on human stem cells derived from adult tissue, which are not controversial.
Indeed, the California initiative was largely an effort to sidestep restrictions on federal financing of human embryonic stem cell research imposed by the Bush administration, which objects to the destruction of human embryos that is necessary in harvesting the stem cells.
The California initiative will become even more important to the field now that President Bush has defeated John Kerry, who had pledged to end the restrictions on the research and to increase federal financing for it.
The backers of Proposition 71, which included Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, appealed to voters mainly on the emotional argument that embryonic stem cells, which can potentially turn into any type of tissue in the body, might eventually be used for life-saving treatments.
To counteract critics who said the state could not afford the measure, the backers also argued that Proposition 71 would make California the leader in what could ultimately be a huge new industry, one that could create jobs and bring the state hundreds of millions of dollars in patent royalties.
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Three defeats undercut ban momentum
By Mike Lee -- Bee Staff Writer
CHICO - California farmers woke up Wednesday to a possible high-tech future - and more battles ahead over genetically engineered crops.
Voters in Butte, San Luis Obispo and Humboldt counties rejected bans on biotech crops, a serious setback for a national movement that wants to stop genetic engineering over safety and social concerns. Only Marin County adopted a ban in Tuesday's election.
"It's a good day for Butte County," said Gridley rice farmer Doug Rudd. "We knew that if they could pass it here, it was going to go right on down the state."
Butte voters rejected the Measure D ban 61 percent to 39 percent. The race was slightly closer in San Luis Obispo County, where Measure Q was defeated 59 percent to 41 percent.
In Humboldt County, where supporters pulled back after questions were raised about the legality of the ballot language, Measure M was rejected 65 percent to 35 percent. Marin County voters approved the biotech ban by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent.
The results send a strong signal across the nation that voters in high-production farm counties aren't willing to reject the controversial technology.
"(Tuesday's results) certainly suggest that ag biotechnology is not really threatened in the United States," said Gregory Conko, director of food safety policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Libertarian-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C.
Voting followed a typical pattern, said Conko. The county with the heaviest urban influence voted against biotechnology, while counties where farmers depend heavily on innovation supported biotechnology.
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By NICHOLAS WADE
A male achievement that is perhaps insufficiently celebrated is that with every heartbeat a man generates 1,000 sperm, each of which has taken two months to produce. In a step that brings closer the possibility of making inheritable genetic changes in humans, scientists have succeeded in growing outside the body the special stem cells that direct the remarkably prolific process of sperm production.
Although the method now works just for mice, it may well apply to human cells, since they use the same genetic signals as mouse cells.
Cultivation of the sperm production cells has been a 10-year goal of Dr. Ralph L. Brinster, a reproductive biologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. The ability to culture the cells is a first step that leads in a number of possible directions. One is correcting the sperm of infertile men. Another, if ethically acceptable, would be genetic engineering in humans. A third is generating embryonic stem cells without the controversial step of making an embryo.
The new method was developed by Dr. Brinster and his colleagues Hiroshi Kubota and Mary R. Avarbock and is reported in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Write SEEMailif you can't get the .pdf]
The ability to cultivate the sperm production cells in large numbers would make it possible to try swapping mutated genes in the cells for normal or improved versions. With infertile men, the sperm production cells could be removed, genetically treated, and put back in the testis, where they should produce normal sperm.
Dr. Brinster said he hoped to learn how to make the sperm production cells produce sperm outside the body. Genetically altered sperm could then be used directly for in vitro fertilization. The technique could be useful in animal breeding; whether it would be considered ethical in human reproduction is likely to be a matter of debate.
The technique may also provide an alternative route for generating embryonic stem cells for use in repairing the body's tissues. The sperm production cells are adult stem cells, which are specialized, self-renewing cells, each type of which is dedicated to repairing or maintaining a specific body tissue. All are descended from embryonic stem cells, the all-purpose cells from which the body is made.
At present, embryonic stem cells are taken from the surplus embryos generated in fertility clinics. The sperm production cells have many of the same characteristics of embryonic stem cells and, Dr. Brinster believes, are only a couple of developmental steps away from them. It may be possible to walk them backward into being embryonic stem cells. These could then be converted into the specialized cell types needed to repair damaged organs.
The new technique "will fuel a major advance in genetic modification for farm animals, endangered species and primates, including humans," Martin M. Matzuk, a reproductive biologist at the Baylor College of Medicine, said in a written commentary.
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By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Stem-cell research, a once obscure area of medical science that crossed over into politics during the 2004 election, may benefit from the re-election of President Bush, supporters said Wednesday.
Scientists in other fields were less optimistic after four years of an often antagonistic relationship with the Bush administration, but hope the end of the campaign season will bring the opportunity for cooperation.
Research involving stem cells taken from human embryos has won support across political and ideological lines, and a measure to spend $3 billion on the new science passed in a California ballot measure Tuesday.
Supporters also say they have enough votes in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass legislation to encourage the research on a federal level, despite clear opposition from Bush, who has severely restricted the use of federal funds for such work.
"We heard from a number of Republican members of Congress over the past several months who indicated support for stem cell research but didn't want to break with their president during a tough election battle. So they may feel free to express their support now," said Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Campaign for the Advancement of Medical Research.
"There is reason to believe that Congress is going to be in the mood to loosen the policy on stem-cell research," Tipton added in a telephone interview.
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By Alok Prakash Putul in Raipur
For farmers in the eastern Indian state of Chhattisgarh it is cheaper than pesticides and gets the job done just as well. The product? Pepsi or Coca-Cola.
Agricultural scientists give them some backing - they say the high sugar content of the drinks can make them effective in combating pests.
Unsurprisingly, Pepsi and Coca-Cola strongly disagree, saying there is nothing in the drinks that can be used in pest control.
Farmers in the Durg, Rajnandgaon and Dhamtari districts of Chhattisgarh say they have successfully used Pepsi and Coke to protect their rice plantations against pests.
It is a trend that has been seen in other parts of India, with farmers also using Indian brands of colas.
The practice of using soft drinks in lieu of pesticides, which are 10 times more expensive, is gaining so much popularity that sales of the drinks have increased drastically in remote villages.
Farmers say the use of pesticides costs them 70 rupees ($1.50) an acre.
By comparison, if they mix a bottle of Pepsi or Coke with water and spray it on the crop it costs 55-60 rupees less per acre.
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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch farm ministry sealed off more livestock farms on Thursday after discovering cancer-causing dioxin in animal feed that had also been exported to neighboring Germany and Belgium, authorities said.
A total of 162 Dutch cattle, pig, sheep and goat farms, eight Belgian farms and three German had bought a potato feed product that was contaminated with dioxin.
Authorities in the three countries have temporarily shut all the farms as a precaution since Wednesday and have been examining the feed, the animals and any impact on the food chain.
The product was from the Dutch unit of privately held Canadian potato chip maker McCain, the Dutch ministry said.
"We've tracked down all the farms that have bought the contaminated feed and we have informed our colleagues in Germany and Belgium," said Benno Bruggink, a spokesman for the Dutch Agriculture Ministry.
"There are eight farms in Belgium and three in Germany, and we don't expect more farms to be shut."
He said Dutch authorities had adjusted the exact number of farms that they closed on Wednesday from 140 to 113 as they miscalculated them because of the type of animals they had.
The ministry sealed off another 49 farms on Thursday.
McCain and ministry officials say the reason for the contamination of the feed is a clay used for sorting potatoes.
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By David Elstein
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26--Studies by scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Missouri indicate that the natural immune system of young cloned pigs does not appear to fight diseases as effectively as the immune system of non-cloned pigs.
Animal physiologist Jeff Carroll of USDA's Agricultural Research Service collaborated with University of Missouri-Columbia scientists Bart Carter, Randall Prather and Scott Korte on the study. The pigs were cloned at the University of Missouri by Prather and his colleagues. ARS is USDA's chief scientific research agency. At the time of the study, Carroll worked at ARS' Animal Physiology Research Unit in Columbia, but he is now based at the agency's Livestock Issues Research Unit in Lubbock, Texas.
In their experiments, the scientists gave a naturally occurring toxin called lipopolysaccharide to seven young, cloned pigs and 11 genetically similar, non-cloned pigs. Although the non-cloned pigs' immune response was adequate, the cloned pigs' immune system did not produce sufficient quantities of natural proteins called cytokines, which fight infections. Animals must have an adequate cytokine response to survive infections.
Cloned pigs, as well as cloned cows, have been known to have a higher-than-normal number of deaths around the time of birth. Many die from bacterial infections.
As newborns, both the cloned and non-cloned pigs received some disease protection through their consumption of colostrum, a natural substance passed to a newborn pig via its mother's milk. The colostrum helps protect the young animal until its own immune system begins to function.
The cloned pigs are being used only for research purposes, and are not part of the food supply.
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