A self-described "thoughtful conservative,"
California State Senator George Runner (R-Antelope Valley) is now serving as, among other things, the Senate Republican Caucus Chair and the Vice Chair of the Senate Health Committee.
He is also one of two joint authors (with California State Senator Deborah Ortiz [D-Sacramento]) of two currently pending bills,
SB 18 and
SCA 13, which would, respectively, establish a system for informed consent on the part of women donating their eggs for embryonic stem cell research conducted by entities funded by the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee (ICOC) set up by
Proposition 71 to oversee the expenditure of $3 billion in state bond money for bio-medical research, and impose various transparency, auditing, and conflict-of-interest regulations on the ICOC itself.
On April 20, 2005,
SB 18 and
SCA 13 were
approved unanimously by the California Senate's Health Committee.
Senator Runner spoke this morning with
California Politics Today about the provisions and current status of these two bills, SB 18 and SCA 13.
You can listen to that interview in its entirety by clicking
here.
SB 18 is a proposed statute that would provide safeguards against the exploitation of woman who volunteer to undergo "hyper-ovulation" treatments in order to donate their eggs for the purpose of research to be conducted under the aegis of the ICOC.
SCA 13 is a proposed state constitutional amendment that would impose standards for open meetings and open records on the ICOC and legislate against conflicts-of-interest on the part of ICOC, California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), and CIRM Working Group staff and members.
To read a "Fact Sheet" from the California State Senate Health Committee summarizing the provisions of SB 18 and SCA 13, click
here.
For an article including links to an op-ed column and an exclusive interview with Massachusetts State Representative Betty Poirier about questions raised by the need for some women to undergo hyper-ovulation treatments, a medical procedure for which a specified type of informed consent is established by SB 18, in order to make possible the "harvesting" the human eggs required for purposes of embryonic stem cell research, click
here.
