New York’s Stem Cell Misstep

Once upon a time, New York dictated policy to the rest of the nation. It enacted the first worker compensation law in 1910 and established a state Department of Labor more than a decade before the federal government created its own. America’s transportation infrastructure is based largely on the vision of the chairman of the New York parks council for more than three decades, Robert Moses. And most public entitlement programs are traceable in some way to the activist mind of the state’s 48th governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt.These days, however, the opposite is increasingly the case. Desperate to support many of the programs lawmakers here proudly devised, Albany is now looking to other states for ideas. A plan to increase public spending on education through casino gambling follows a similar experiment in Pennsylvania. A task force on Medicaid reform was suggested here one year after Governor Perry created one in Texas. And a proposal by Democratic leaders to retain medical researchers by offering federal money for embryonic stem cell research not funded by the federal government follows the decision by California voters last year to approve billions for a similar plan.Indeed, if imitation is the highest form of flattery, then the stem cell bill proposed last week by Senator Nicholas Spano, a Westchester Republican, may be the clearest sign yet that New York has ceded its policy primacy to other states. When asked for a copy of the proposed legislation, an aide to Mr. Spano faxed a copy of the California bill with the note “$100 million” scribbled in the margin. New York’s bill would be identical to the one in California, the aide said, in every respect but size. Voters in California approved $3 billion over 10 years; Mr. Spano is proposing $1 billion over the same period.Most arguments for funding research on new embryos in New York follow a competitive line. The New York State comptroller, Alan Hevesi, issued a report last week saying New York could gain 7,000 jobs through increased funding for this and other biotechnology projects. “Biotechnology is already an important element of New York State’s economy,” Mr. Hevesi said. “If we don’t provide the level of support available in other states, research and development and all the jobs and opportunities that accompany it, will happen elsewhere.” An added enticement, Mr. Hevesi said, is the prospect of new manufacturing facilities upstate.Yet New Yorkers who are scratching their heads over the options presented by Messrs. Spano and Hevesi – economic stimulus vs. brain drain – might do well to consider how venture capitalists in California have responded to talk of miracle cures and the rebirth of American manufacturing in their own state. They haven’t. According to the Sacramento Bee, 10 investors who sit on the board that will oversee spending under Proposition 71 could benefit personally from the cash infusion. Independent West Coast investors, meanwhile, are leaving it up to taxpayers to determine whether new embryos hold the promise that their advocates predict.That may be because they were listening to expert testimony on the research instead of the paid commercial advertisements that led up to the California vote. At a May hearing of the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Aging, an Alzheimer’s expert at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Peter Rabins, told senators he does not expect embryos to play a role in finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. As a research consultant for the President’s Council on Bioethics, Eric Cohen, recently wrote: “The promise of embryonic stem cell research is very real but wholly speculative. No human therapies of any kind have yet been developed or tested, and none are on the horizon.”In the race to “keep up” with California, it is not yet clear whether lawmakers in New York will pass their own version of a research bill. Such a law would likely pass through the Assembly, which has introduced its own version of the California bill two years running. But it would likely stall in the Senate. Only six Republican senators out of 37 openly support such legislation, though Senator Bruno has hinted he might be willing to strike a compromise on the issue in upcoming budget talks. “The senator intends to clearly address this issue this year,” said a spokesman for Mr. Bruno, John McCardle.Governor Pataki’s position remains unclear. When asked last week by reporters whether he would support a bill to fund research on new embryos, Mr. Pataki responded that he hadn’t seen the proposals but thinks such research “in general” is “positive.” That kind of hedging could be a political calculation. When Governor Romney of Massachusetts, once thought to support the research, said last week that he would not approve funding for it, many observers read the remarks as a sign he is angling for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.Mr. Pataki, who is thought by most political observers to be too liberal on social issues to win national office as a Republican, could be doing the same. His support of the stem cell bill could be a sign he is not interested in the presidency. Opposition could be a sign he is. Or, Mr. Pataki could hedge again by opposing embryo research for financial rather than moral reasons. Such a move might help satisfy conservative voters, but it would do nothing to correct the misleading reasons that have been proposed in favor of the research. It would be a clear sign, though, that New York is back in the driver’s seat.Mr. McGuire is the Albany bureau man of The New York Sun.

New York’s Stem Cell Misstep

New York’s Stem Cell Misstep

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