Deborah Burger, R.N., President of the California Nurses Association

The California Nurses Association (CNA) was an outspoken critic of California Proposition 71, the Stem Cell Initiative. Its president, Deborah Burger, explained her views on the measure in an October 18, 2004 interview entitled "Deborah Burger, R.N., President of California Nurses Association, favors embryonic stem cell research but marshals pro-choice, financial, equity arguments against Proposition 71."

California State Senator Deborah Ortiz on December 6, 2004, introduced SB 18, a bill designed to rectify what she sees as some inadequacies in the structure of the newly-established Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee (ICOC), which, under the terms of Proposition 71, has authority and responsibility for the operations of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which will administer the dispersal of the $3 billion dollars authorized and earmarked for embryonic stem cell research by the passage of that state constitutional amendment initiative.

Although he wasn't yet ready to take an official position on the passage, defeat, or amendment and passage of Senator Ortiz' SB 18, California Nurses Association spokesperson Charles Idelson did have some things to say today about the now-passed Proposition 71 and the general attitude of that group towards efforts to reform it.

"The California Nurses Association was outspoken in opposition to Proposition 71 precisely for all of the fine print some of our larger media is now discovering," the CAN spokesperson said, calling the measure "a massive boondoggle, a direct giveaway of three to six billion dollars in public funds to large biotech and pharmaceutical corporations that stood to make enormous sums of profit off the public trough.":

While he said he wasn't in a position to announce the CNA's stand on SB 18 at this point, Mr. Idelson did say that "We are committed to trying to take whatever action is needed to correct the many inadequacies of that initiative."

You can hear CAN spokesperson Charles Idelson's comments about Proposition 71 and efforts to reform its operation in their entirety by clicking here.