California funding for cloning is all about the profits

California's Prop 71 was a real con job.  Somehow CA voters were dupped into spending 3 billion dollars just on research into cloning embryos for spare parts.  Adult stem cell research probaby won't get a dime.  Nevermind that no one has successfully extracted stem cells from a cloned embryo yet, or that no cure has ever come from cloned embryonic stem cells, or even from regular embryonic stem cells for that matter.

The hallowed halls of universities and Biotech companies wanted this money bad, so they could tinker around for years at the public's expense and then reap the profits if cures actually result.

So what happens when Californians ask for a share of the profits from research that they are funding?  The Biotech industry says "No Way!"  John Simpson writes this great piece in the San Jose Mercury News:

Remember the kid on the playground who threatened to pick up his marbles unless he got his way? Meet the biotech industry. Big biotech firms are telling the Proposition 71 stem-cell committee: Do it our way or we'll pick up our petri dishes and go home.

The stem-cell committee is drawing up rules for the ownership and control of discoveries made by businesses, universities and research institutions that get some of the $3 billion in public money for stem-cell research. Already biotech executives are huffing and puffing about any requirement that fair-public-benefit provisions be linked to the grants.

Their remarks at the most recent Intellectual Property Task Force meeting were little more than a blustering attempt to cow Californians into believing that needed stem-cell research won't happen unless the game is played by biotech's rules. Don't believe them.

People always assume science and scientists are altruistic.  Give them money and they will do the right thing because they are smart and are trying to cure disease.  But really, when you threaten to take a percentage of Big Biotech's profits, all of a sudden, finding cures isn't all that important anymore.  If Big Biotech foots the bill for its own research, I say then let them reap all of the rewards.  If their research is paid for by average Joe taxpayer, then they are going to have to share.  This is priceless:

We should not sit by while the biotech industry makes a run at a share of $3 billion in Proposition 71 funds that are already being described as "almost like free money'' in venture-capital circles.

Companies like Genentech act like committed socialists when it comes to taxpayers and the government bearing the risk of drug development. But they are greedy capitalists when it's time to parcel out the profits.