A Biologist's Dilemma

Sometimes I wish the simple Manichean view of the world as black versus white, good versus evil, Red Sox versus Yankees, actually had some worth as a value system. But it doesn't. (Well, maybe the last one does.) So my position on Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, is worthy of John Kerry: I favor stem cell research but have serious reservations about Proposition 71.

The cynical part of me thinks that President Bush only banned federal funding for embryonic stem cell research so that states would have to pay for it. After all, if he wanted to take a true moral stand, he would have banned the research entirely, including in vitro fertilization, which is federally supported and is the source of all the embryos to be destroyed. But now the states, already in bad fiscal shape and desperate to reduce health care costs, have to decide whether to fund new medical research or basic infrastructure. And because of California's initiative system, the choice comes to the voters.

There are so many other things we could spend $3 billion on, such as health care for the uninsured, more and better teachers, or lowered university fees. How am I supposed to decide on these priorities? That's what we hire legislators for!

Several fellow students told me that given California's ill fiscal health, we can't afford to borrow money for health care or education because we would just be dumping the real problem-a structural deficit and increasing debt-on our children's laps. We should therefore view Proposition 71 as a jobs stimulus package that would increase tax revenues down the line. If we can induce high-tech industries to settle in California, the increase in personal and corporate income taxes will pay for the borrowing.

The problem is, I've heard this one before, back in the Reagan era. It's called trickle-down economics. There's no question that our economy grew under Reagan-it was and still is the largest in the world-but do we now have universal health care and better education? No. We rank below other industrialized nations in both areas, and we're saddled with a multitrillion dollar national debt. Even Paul Berg, a Nobel laureate and staunch backer of Proposition 71, told me this measure won't pay for itself for a while. "Royalties will be so far down the line because it's going to take a while to actually develop any drugs or therapies," he said.

Yes, there is a broader benefit-a variety of diseases may be cured by stem cell research. But even these benefits will likely accrue only to the few. Peter Mombaerts of Rockefeller University estimates that therapeutic cloning for a patient will cost $100,000 to $200,000. Will California borrow money to ensure that even those who can't pay for stem cell therapy will have access to it? Not likely.

So if California's economy is heading toward a cliff faster than you can say "Recall," shouldn't biologists try to get as much out of the state as we can, while we have the power and opportunity? $295 million a year for research would ensure that I get that five-figure salary I've been slaving away in lab and dealing with anxious pre-meds for. And, as I wrote in my first column this semester, "There is nothing inherently wrong with self-interest. The fragile balance of democracy works when diverse groups with varied and often opposing interests come together in a spirit of compromise."

If this is a morally defensible position for me to take as a biologist, however, then I can no longer attack Halliburton, the oil executives influencing Cheney's energy policy, the pharmaceutical companies or the defense industry for furthering their own financial interests. I am disgusted with the war profiteering and crony capitalism practiced by the Bush administration because I am able to see the bigger picture. Enriching the few occurs at the expense of the many. But if I am given the opportunity to be one of the enriched few, is it right for me to turn around and say that I should act in my own self-interest?

It is tempting to support an initiative that will benefit me personally. But I fear that by advocating so strongly in our own interests, concerned scientists like myself will lose the ability to objectively criticize corporate robber barons. We can take the money, but is it actually hush money? A way to silence detractors by spreading the guilt onto us? I'm sorry, but I'll have to stay out of this one.

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