Bustamante Appoints Stem Cell Committee Member
Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (D) on Wednesday appointed Marcy Feit, president and CEO of ValleyCare Health System, to serve on the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the Contra Costa Times reports. ValleyCare is a not-for-profit health care system with facilities in Pleasanton and Livermore, including the Livermore Center of Excellence in Diabetes.
Bustamante has appointed five members to ICOC, and Feit will fill the position designated for a "Type 2 Diabetes advocacy group," according to a release from Bustamante's office (Contra Costa Times, 9/21).
Phyllis Preciado, a physician who previously served as the type 2 diabetes advocate on ICOC, in May resigned from the committee (California Healthline, 5/25).
ICOC members at a Sept. 9 meeting to award grants were "asked to make multimillion-dollar decisions based on a two-page memo" from the committee's working groups, according to a Sacramento Bee editorial. The editorial states that ICOC must either "insist on all information" from working groups or "delegate the job of awarding grants to an outside panel of scientists." If they chose the second option, those scientists "would need to disclose their potential conflicts," the editorial states (Sacramento Bee, 9/18).
This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.