California Stem Cell Lawsuit Begins Today

The lawsuit against the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine begins today. Here's a pretty good AP article summing it up. A significant paragraph that's buried towards the end of the article:

Klein, who is now chair of the agency's oversight committee, has said the taxpayer foundation is a front for religious groups who opposed embryonic stem cell research. But the group's lawyers have denied the claim, even though they concede the group opposes the research on moral grounds.

The article also points out that the lawsuits have already damaged stem cell research efforts in California. When voters approved Proposition 71 in 2004, lots of news stories, including my own, talked about the $3 billion bond measure luring scientists from all over the world to California to study embryonic stem cells. But with the money tied up for months in lawsuits, several coveted researchers chose other locations, like Singapore.

Another comment from this LA Times article (via the San Jose Mercury News, weirdly this paragraph doesn't appear in the same article on the LA Times' site) suggests that even if the CSIRM wins today, which even many who are morally apposed to embryonic stem cell research think is likely, the $3 billion might remain in limbo:

Dana Cody, executive director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, has pledged to appeal all the way to the California Supreme Court, if needed, so even a series of rulings in the institute's favor would not clear the state to issue bonds until spring 2007, officials have said.