This is not the newest Georgia Legislature news, but well worth mentioning. Erick Erickson at Peach Pundit disingenuously claimed a few days ago that the Republican version of the stem cell research bill sidesteps controversy by avoiding embryonic stem cell research altogether, focusing just on adult stem cell research. However, as Senator David Adelman pointed out in his AJC editorial yesterday, the Republican bill would actually criminalize embyonic stem cell research.
A competing bill was introduced last week that would take the extraordinary step of criminalizing research on new embryonic stem cell lines. This bill, SB 596, is tricky. It looks a lot like my bill. Its author gave it a confusingly similar name and copied my bill verbatim in many places. But, in stark contrast to my bill, SB 596 criminalizes embryonic stem cell research, making it a felony, requiring up to a 10-year prison sentence and imposing a $100,000 fine on researchers who work on new stem cell lines.
Senator Adelman’s bill is a good one, and would be a boon to medical research and (perhaps more importantly) attract biotech dollars to the state. The Republican version is a trojan horse that would be a giant step backwards for the state pushed under the name of medical advancement. Sadly, the odds seem good the latter will be passed, and Georgia will lose all those biotech dollars to less medieval states.
Adelman is one of the few state Democrats I can consistently describe as competent and who I think often has good ideas. I would love to see him run for governor one day. He also has a blog, which doesn’t hurt his standing with me.
Adelman is the featured speaker at the Murphy Reception next Thursday.
[...] Here is another Dave. David Adelman. Rusty has mentioned him. So has Amber. David Adelman is the Georgia State Senator from Dekalb County. He is a Democrat. He has a blog. Mr Adelman had an editorial in last week’s AJC about his recent bill. Actually, Mr Adelman’s editorial addresses not only his own bill, but the potential for confusion between his bill and another bill by the aforementioned David Schafer. Mr Adelman’s bill is SB 537. The title of Mr Adelman’s bill is “The Search for the Cure Act of 2006.” The summary of SB 537 is this (again, with bolding): [...]