Editorial: Focus on science, not politics

March 6, 2006
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A proposal to provide $2.5 million in state seed money to promote collaborative bio-medical research between the Medical College of Wisconsin and four other colleges in the region is in trouble because of concerns about what the money might be used for. Namely, embryonic stem cell research.

Ironically, it's that very research that has put Wisconsin on the global biomedical map. It was, after all, James Thomson, a University of Wisconsin biologist, who first isolated and cultured human embryonic stem cell lines, which many scientists believe may hold the key to curing diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Unfortunately, special interests rather than science appear to be setting the Legislature's agenda on this important economic and biomedical initiative. After commendably introducing the bill in October to provide the money for the Biomedical Technology Alliance when Gov.
Jim Doyle cut $2 million allotted for the alliance out of the budget, Sen. Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield) later caved to political pressure and attached a prohibition on using any of the state dollars for embryonic stem cell research.

That was a blunder from the standpoint of objective, sound science. But it was also a mistake from a practical standpoint since Doyle says he will not be able to sign the measure with the current prohibition in place. And he shouldn't.

"People are just treating it as a political football at this point," Kanavas told Journal Sentinel business reporter Kathleen Gallagher.

He's right; it is being treated as a political football, but that's because Kanavas agreed to turn his otherwise worthy idea into a pigskin.

Kanavas said he amended the bill to get it through the Legislature. We think Doyle's interpretation is more on point: "Sen. Kanavas has allowed a special interest group to come in and sabotage this bill."

Wisconsin Right to Life's executive director, Barbara Lyons, conceded that her group worked "behind the scenes" to ensure that the state funding for the alliance could not be used for embryonic stem cell research because it entails the destruction of embryos.

Never mind that an official of the Medical College of Wisconsin, the biggest research institution in the alliance, estimates that less than 1% of the college's annual research spending involved embryonic stem cells.

And never mind that putting unreasonable anti-science limits on that state money is likely to throw a monkey wrench into efforts to build on Wisconsin's promising future as a biotechnical and therapeutic leader.