What’s all the buzz about Proposition 14? Why is the scientific community encouraging everyone to vote “Yes” ?
Prop 14 plans to use debt to fund biomedical research: $5.5 billion in state general obligation bonds to be exact. The basic math is this: $5.5B granted today will accumulate $2.3B in interest. This interest will be payed back over 30 years in annual installments of $260 million by “Primarily General Fund tax revenue” aka, your taxes.
How is the $5.5B being distributed?
The grants will be distributed by the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to “educational, nonprofit, and private entities for: stem cell and other medical research, including training; stem cell therapy development and delivery; research facility construction and associated administrative expenses”(Official Voter Information Guide).
This debt funding concept is not new. Prop 14 is preceded by Prop 71 which awarded $2.7B in stem cell grants since 2004. That money was utilized for important cancer research projects at a time when the federal government refused to fund stem cell research. The catch? The research was supposed to pay for itself with projected revenues from successful therapies. That has not yet happened.
Revenue projections aside, stem cell research is incredibly important to the ALS community. Please watch this webinar to hear experts discuss stem cell projects involving basic research and potential therapies for ALS that depend on Prop 14.