Columnist Raises Questions About State Stem Cell Agency

Geron's announcement last month that it was stopping "the first human trial of stem cell-based spinal cord therapy ... underscores the old questions, and raises new ones, about what [the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine] is supposed to accomplish," Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik writes. Geron refunded a loan from CIRM to fund the trial, but "CIRM needs to take a good look at whether it pushed too hard for the Geron loan and overplayed the significance of the trial," according to Hiltzik, who adds, "These questions are only going to become more important in the future, as CIRM prepares to ask California voters for new billions to supplement its original $3 billion bond issue authorized by voters through 2004's Proposition 71."

• "California Stem Cell Agency Needs To Study Itself" (Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 12/7).