While federal funding for new lines of stem cells is unlikely with four more years of George W. Bush, hope for those with chronic diseases like diabetes and Parkinson’s may be coming from California’s passing of Proposition 71.

With Proposition 71, California voters tackled the most controversial issue of modern science by authorizing the state to spend $3 billion on stem-cell research. This massive endorsement will almost certainly attract businesses and biologists from across the world.

President Bush ordered restrictions on federal funding in 2001 for stem cells removed from human embryos, citing ethical concerns. The restrictions cut funding to a miniscule $25 million a year. The restrictions force states to separate state research labs and equipment dealing with stem cell research from those labs funded through the National Institutes of Health. Immediately after the restrictions were imposed, universities like Wisconsin and California-San Francisco established off-campus labs to work on stem cells without federal funding.

Bush’s 2001 decision essentially put the greatest research community in the world behind bars and limited the scope of their research. Bush may be the first president to ever provide any type of funding for stem-cell research, but he is also the primary reason why the United States continues to fall behind countries like Great Britain and Korea in the area of stem-cell research. There is no reason that the United States should be falling behind countries like Great Britain and Korea, when we started the movement and continue to have better researchers and better facilities.

The implications of Bush’s 2001 decision are evident with the arrival of Proposition 71 and more recently Governor Jim Doyle’s decision to fund a $375 million research institution dubbed “Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.”

According to Chancellor John Wiley, the “Wisconsin Institute for Discovery” would replace one of the “ugliest blocks on campus” with the doorway to cure our society’s most dire conditions. The state’s massive endorsement of stem-cell research aims to attract specialists in biochemistry and nanotechnology, while opening up a world-class research institution in the backyard of where the stem-cell movement began.

“Wisconsin can’t match California dollar-for-dollar, but California can’t match Wisconsin for what we already have, including the best scientists in the world and first-class research institutions,” Governor Jim Doyle said after announcing the initiative.

It’s about time the state dumped a significant amount of money into an area of the University that could unlock the secrets of diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and more. It’s even more surprising it took this long considering this is where the stem-cell movement started. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that if stem cells could cure conditions like diabetes and Parkinson’s, and if the University held the patents to the treatments of these conditions, then an investment in stem cells now could mean a very comfortable future for the University.

It’s also ironic that this initiative was announced just days after Proposition 71 was passed. Hopefully the “Wisconsin Institute for Discovery” was not a reaction to Proposition 71, but a well-planned and researched initiative. It seems more of the latter as Doyle also announced plans to invest an additional $750 million on stem cells and other medical experiments.

Wisconsin and California may be the first two states to announce significant investments in researching stem cells, but other states and their researchers are tired of being second-class in the most significant area of modern science. States like Illinois, Minnesota and Massachusetts have started dialogue on investing more in researching stem cells. The time is now for President Bush to rethink his policy on federal funding for stem cells.

It’s amazing that a state with the worst credit rating in the country that is in chronic severe debt can invest more annually than a federal government that wants to throw $80 billion every six months into a war with no end in sight. Priorities need to be rearranged and the promise of a better future needs to be fulfilled.

Derek Montgomery ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and political science. He is a former Senior Airman in the Wisconsin Air National Guard and was stationed at Volk Field before being medically discharged in 2001 with Type 1 Diabetes.