Workers at an agricultural plant in Newell sort through material on a picking line. (Photo: My Photo Buddy, via Shutterstock)Tired of losing billions to worker lawsuits, California business leaders are betting millions that voters will eliminate the lightning rod Private Attorney General Act and give enforcement authority to a historically underfunded state agency.
Commercial marijuana being dried at a California facility. (Photo: Shutterstock)With cannabis taxes to rise on Jan. 1 and a legitimate business landscape plagued by a thriving black market, California’s marijuana industry faces uncertainty. The tax hike — like others before it — stems from a state law requiring the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration to recalculate the cultivation tax rates once a year because of inflation.
Evangelina Padilla-Vaccaro’s medical team gathers around her on the day she received her gene-therapy stem-cell transplant. (Photo: Padilla-Vaccaro family, via UCLA Health)A London-based biotech firm has given up its life-saving treatment for the bubble baby disease and turned it over to California’s $12 billion stem cell agency and UCLA, where it was developed with tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Gunsmith working on an 300 Blackout AR rifle upper receiver in a vise at a gun shop in CaliforniaOPINION: As gun sales and gun deaths have continued to surge since the onset of the pandemic, California’s underinvestment in violence intervention programs has become a glaring policy failure. Even after January 2021 proved to be California’s single deadliest month for gun homicides since 2007, the governor and state legislators have still not agreed to make funding the California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) grant program a priority.
A lineup of mailboxes in rural California. (Photo: Elena Koulik, via Shutterstock)The campaign to save California’s stem cell research program from financial extinction is making an “unprecedented,” electronic sprint to gather the final signatures to qualify its $5.5 billion rescue measure for the November ballot.
Signature gathering in Ventura County during the 2018 election cycle. (Photo: Michael Gordon, via Shutterstock)The current coronavirus emergency and the practice of social distancing are likely to put a crimp in gathering signatures to qualify a $5.5 billion stem cell initiative for the November ballot in California.
Robert Klein at a November 2017 meeting of CIRM directors. (Photo: California Stem Cell Report)The man regarded as the father of the $3 billion California stem cell agency is thinking about changes in the program to help win voter approval of another $5 billion for the research program. They include a stronger requirement to make state-backed, stem cell therapies more affordable and accessible and to provide more cash for creating a greater stem cell work force in the Golden State.
Blood cells in a bone marrow smear, examined as part of stem cell research. (Photo: toeytoey, via Shutterstock)California’s state stem cell agency is down to its last $67.3 million following a decision Thursday to back research to enhance bone healing in elderly patients who undergo spinal surgery. The $4 million award went to Ankasa Regenerative Therapeutics following little discussion among members of the governing board of the $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
Human fetal placenta under high magnification. (Photo: photowind, via ShutterstockThe California stem cell agency says the Trump administration’s moves against research involving fetal tissue have had no impact on the projects that it is financing, at least so far. The agency, formally known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), was responding to a question originally raised by a reader of the California Stem Cell Report.
A stem cell researcher in the laboratory. (Photo: 18percentgrey, via Shutterstock)The recent federal crackdown on the use of fetal tissue in scientific research could well be a harbinger of an effort to revive restrictions on the use of human embryonic stem cells, placing a roadblock in the way of creation of therapies to treat often deadly afflictions that affect millions of Americans. And it could have an impact on the fate of California’s $3 billion stem cell program, which expects to run out of money for new awards by the end of next year.