A state steps in.

Byline: The Register-Guard

In the Texas hold 'em gamble on the therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cell research, the state of California just raised the stakes into the stratosphere.

Biotech researchers are already calling California's $3 billion voter-approved bond to fund stem cell research the beginning of a 21st century gold rush. To steal a phrase from Ross Perot, that "giant sucking sound" you hear is California vacuuming up the best and brightest scientists from New Mexico to New York.

In one sense, California's initiative - approved by 59 percent of the state's voters - is the kind of entrepreneurial response to an opportunity that warms President Bush's heart. But this particular opportunity arose because of inadequate federal investment in embryonic stem cell research resulting from strict limitations imposed by Bush.

As a consequence, California voters, with the strong backing of Gov. Arnold Swarzenegger, established the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and made the federal government's involvement irrelevant. But the result won't be anything like having an impartial agency such as the National Institutes of Health doling out research dollars evenly throughout the county.

Though few would argue against competition, the word doesn't carry the same meaning when an economy the size of California's is involved. The federal government, based on Bush's moral reservations, spent a paltry $25 million on stem cell research last year. California's program will dwarf the federal investment by a factor of 12, pouring $300 million a year for the next 10 years into projects that explore the potential for embryonic stem cells to offer treatments for diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease and spinal cord injuries.

The sheer magnitude of California's program places it in competition with a number of countries that have made stem cell research a national priority, including the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia, Israel and South Korea. California is banking on its research investment to bear profitable fruit within a decade, allowing the institute to become self-supporting.

The use of human embryonic stem cells in research remains morally repugnant to those, like President Bush, who believe life begins at conception. Embryonic stem cells are developed from four- or five-day-old embryos created through in-vitro fertilization, a process in which eggs are fertilized outside the womb. When stem cells are removed, the embryo is destroyed.

Despite his essential agreement with the strict anti-abortion position, President Bush deserves credit for trying to strike a compromise three years ago on federal funding of stem cell research. Unfortunately, Bush's initial projections of stem cell availability didn't materialize.

The moral line drawn by Bush was originally meant to prevent the government from creating new embryos that would be destroyed in subsequent research. But that line is blurred by the fact that fertility clinics simply discard or freeze far more human embryos in the normal course of treating patients than federal researchers ever would. In-vitro fertilization creates multiple embryos in the hope of successfully implanting just one. Most of those surplus embryos will die.

Now California has made it possible for surplus embryos to be donated to the Institute for Regenerative Medicine for research into potentially life-saving treatments.

The initiative is enormously significant. A decisive majority of California voters saw a vital research need being inadequately addressed by the federal government, and they essentially solved the problem for the entire nation.

Though the short-term cost will likely be a brain drain from other states, the long-term social benefits far outweigh other concerns.