As is getting play just about everywhere today, Spitzer has announced he wants New York to get in on the state-based stem cell research funding. What is particularly notable is the focus on upstate New York research universities and opportunity, including the state capital, and my current home, Albany.
Given Spitzer’s apparent focus to have a Stem Cell Commission regulating the research funding, and focus on ethics, makes this sounds like it might be (to borrow from both Caplan and McGee) the full employment act for New York bioethicists. If so, I can certainly see making the state my more permanent home.
One of the biggest complaints prominent bioethicists had about California’s Prop 71 and its governing board was the lack of bioethicists sitting on it (something that might have remedied by now – not sure). Will Spitzer take his emphasis on the research being ethical to the logical conclusion, and reach just up the street from the state capital to take advantage of the great resource at his fingertips? Only time will tell – but it should be interesting to see.
6 years ain’t permanent enough?
Well, it’ll be around as much time as I lived in Seattle… I meant beyond that, though. ๐