When I think about the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, what words come to mind? Well, there’s “arrogance.” “Hubris” also works. “Mismanagement” is on all fours, as we say in the law. “Spendthrift.” “Hype.” “Unaccountable.” I could go on and on.
But let’s get back to spendthrift. The state is sinking financially. Cutbacks are being forced across the board. But not at the CIRM. From the LA Times story:
California’s stem cell research agency says it needs billions more taxpayer dollars to deliver on promised cures to major diseases. Yet at a time when other departments are cutting back spending, the agency recently agreed to pay its new boss one of the highest salaries in state government. The 50-person grant-making body will pay a Los Angeles investment banker $400,000 to serve as its new part-time board chairman, pushing the combined salaries of its two top officials to nearly $1 million per year.
Hey, I’ll do it for $200,000. Here’s some perspective:
With his $400,008 salary, Thomas joins institute President Alan Trounson — who made $490,008 last year — high on the list of the state’s top paid, non-university employees…Ex-state senator and former Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres, who was hired in 2009 [also part time] to help defend against some of the political criticism, makes $230,000 per year as one of the institute’s vice chairmen. By contrast, Gov. Jerry Brown makes $173,048. The director of the National Institutes of Health, which employs more than 17,000 people and invests $32.5 billion in medical research each year, makes $199,700.
These people live in a different world of “entitlement” (there’s another word) and “luxury.” This is just another reason for the people of California to turn off the borrowing money spigot in 2014.
July 6th, 2011 | 12:21 pm
Where are all the people complaining about their golden parachutes? Oh right, they are killing unborn human beings. Anyone who kills the unborn gets a pass from all that caring for the downtrodden and the least among us stuff. If you’re not an abortionist or embryonic stem cell researcher, you have to have a bureaucrat watching over your shoulder to make sure you aren’t doing anything, like, unethical.
Imagine if CIRM had to put up with a biotech workers union… Phlebotomist Local 465
July 6th, 2011 | 3:36 pm
Actually the embryos used will just be destroyed anyway. As far as the downtrodden, the research is to help the physically disabled such as those with spinal cord damage and other problems.
I wonder how many of those that are against this research actually try to adopt an embryo.
JustChris Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
@Austin Hesse, Austin, you would be surprised, I’ve written two stories about couples that have adopted embryos, four children in all. Two of those children were adopted and born during a proposal drive in Michigan to legalize lethal research on “leftovers” here. How ironic. I’d bet more would be adopted if people actually knew about the issue. Research and news though doesn’t get written or gets legally blocked. The media and researchers have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to these issues of great public concern.
Austin Hesse Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
@JustChris, I remember Bush making an appearance with a number of the “snow flake” children the second time he veto extending funding. And many of the groups against embryonic stem cell research yell about adoption. Adoption is not some great secret. You may know people that have adopted embryos, but there are many more left over embryos than are people willing to adopt them.
And by the way Chris, how many have you adopted???
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 9:47 pm
I was in the East Room for that speech. It was quite a thrill.
JustChris Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 7:47 am
@Austin Hesse, Zero so far, I just got married a year ago and my wife and I have our first due in October. She would like to have one once we have two or three more. How many have you adopted Austin?
Austin Hesse Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
@JustChris, None, but then I’m not the one praising the idea of adopting them … you were. If you believe so strongly in it then lead by example.
July 6th, 2011 | 11:12 pm
Considering that the state has to offer enough money to draw these people from the private sector their salaries may not be at all as high as it may appear. How many people can actually do many of these job.
Look at what happened to Bush and his appointee to FEMA, Brown. No experience, and when Katrina occurred disaster. Not to say that Katrina was only his fault, there was a lot from local and state as well, but by appointing someone that had no idea how to run the department the federal response was shameful.
July 7th, 2011 | 7:32 am
Wesley Smith’s list of epithets describing this department and its minions would seem to be adequately negative and thorough.
But I think we should add “immoral” and “mendacious” to the list.
As for whether their pay is OK considering the private-sector competitive scale, let them keep working in the private sector. Let’s see if the private sector cares to fund embryonic stem-cell research, whose progress exists only in the hyped promises of future miracles, and the rich imagination of their credulous supporters. And whose principal modus operandi begins with the destruction of human beings.
Austin Hesse Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 9:39 pm
@Joe DeVet, So it is more “moral” to throw them away than to use them to help people with physical problems? The only ones used will be disposed of and that’s something that many of the opponents of this research dodge at all cost.
As far as “hyped promises” one of the first patients to receive embryonic stem cells says he has feeling in his legs that he didn’t have before, and that none of the adult stem cell research has provided.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Austin: Adult stem cells have restored feeling to people with long term quadriplegia. Peer reviewed study. Do a Google search. The Geron human trial is of a newly injured patient. It is a safety testl
Austin Hesse Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, But have they restored mobility? Embryonic has worked in rats and that is promising.
For all the success of adult stem cells or promise of iPSC, Konrad Hochedlinger who is working with stem cells said in an article in Scientific American May 2010 embryonic stem cells are needed as a reference point to learn which stem cells are most effective.
July 8th, 2011 | 12:11 am
In just looking over adult stem cells and spinal cord damage on the Internet, I found reference to “success” over seas (which I am suspicious of), but on the other hand in a article by Arthur Caplan, The Stem Cell Hype Machine The Top Five Over-Hyped Claims About Stem Cell Research although he is critical of success just around the corner claims, he defends the use of embryonic stem cells and as far as cures for spinal cord damages mentioned by one opponent of embryonic stem cells commented “I am not sure what he was talking about regarding spinal cord injuries, which as far as I know remain completely incurable.”
You can read the article at http://www.scienceprogress.org/2011/04/the-stem-cell-hype-machine/
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 12:20 am
Austin: You are way reductionist in your outlook and ignorant about what is happening in the field. No one said there has been a “cure,” which is a word far overused in this field. People with quadriplegia and paraplegia have had feeling restored in paralyzed parts of their bodies that they couldn’t feel prior to the treatments. This is in humans, not rats. It is peer reviewed. Some have regained bladder control, which is huge. Some anecdotal reports show people actually standing with assistance. But this is very early research and where it will lead cannot yet be known. It takes time. But the adult stem cell field generally is extremely promising. You should do some more research. Look up Carlos Lima. Look up olfactory stem cells. Check out stemcellresearch.org.
Austin Hesse Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, The embryonic research is promising as well and if it works in rats it may work in human, that’s why they use rats to experiment on in the first place. As far as being reductionist the idea of saying that just because there is success in the adult stem cell field means that we can ignore embryonic seems a reductionist view point. And I know it takes time for progress, unfortunately many of the opponents of the embryonic research maintained just because no one is walking yet because of it yet there is no reason to support it.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
ESCR was hyped, to say the least, for political purposes. But you are taking us beyond the point of the post, which was the profligacy of the CIRM. I live in CA. We’re dying on the vine and they’re feasting on lobster. Off with their funding!
Austin Hesse Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
@Wesley J. Smith, As far as getting off the the reason of the post, I don’t think I’m alone in this.
You may live in California, but I have spinal cord damage. You’re worried about money and I’m worried about quality of life and ability to earn a living. Don’t tell me about economic woe, I lost my job because of spinal cord damage, had to use up years of savings and had it not been for my late mother I’d been on the street. Since I owned my own house and didn’t have a pack of kids that I couldn’t take care of I didn’t qualify for government assistance. And because of the way I lost my job because it was unsafe for me to do, I didn’t qualify for unemployment, not that the company fought it, just because by the way the rules are I didn’t qualify. I have a job now making less, but am very limited what I can do, so if I lose this one I am in major trouble in this economy.
I don’t want money wasted in the least.
I am against someone blowing money because they can get away with it wither it is a minister asking money from the poor so he can live like a king, public servants, or executives in a company that are firing some, working the rest harder to make up for the others and then getting huge bonuses for cutting cost. They need to run a tighter ship not have the ship scuttled.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 9th, 2011 at 12:07 am
Well, our schools are closing. Our Medicaid is cut to the bone. Our parks are closing. I am sorry, but we can’t afford the CIRM.
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