University stem cell programs under attack

In light of ongoing disputes over the Universitys embryonic stem cell research efforts, the state House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education passed a budget recommendation Friday seeking to strip the University of some of its funding from the state.

The recommendation comes more than two weeks after University President Mary Sue Colemans critical remarks to the committee about its budget formulation, and stems from a disagreement over the type of information the University should report to the legislators. Republican members of the committee insist that the University must provide specific data on the research, while University officials have resisted those efforts.

This year, instead of supplying the data points the committee requested, the University compiled what Cynthia Wilbanks, the Universitys vice president for government relations, called a packet of press releases and scientific journal articles on the Universitys embryonic stem cell research.

University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said the University sent the package to legislators to provide them with a more in depth look at the research going on at the University.

It gave the legislature a deeper, broader, richer understanding of the stem cell research than a simple list of five or six numbers, Fitzgerald said.

Wilbanks added that one reason the University did not provide the data was that it does not generate documents that contain the data the committee requested.

We have provided a lot of information that may in part include some of the data points that were identified in the higher education budget, but we dont have documents that specifically provide those kinds of data because the research, as you know, is done in a variety of settings all across the campus, Wilbanks said. The data isnt collected that in that form.

Wilbanks also said that the committees request was unconstitutional, noting that state law promotes research of stem cells in the state.

(In order) to ensure that physicians can conduct the most promising forms of medical research in this state, Article 1, Section 27 of the state Constitution a provision passed by popular vote in 2008 states, any research permitted under federal law on human embryos may be conducted in Michigan, Wilbanks said.

Wilbanks added that since the Universitys research complies with federal law and the limitations and requirements set out in the constitutional amendment, the state cannot obstruct it by asking for its data.

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University stem cell programs under attack