�The Michigan Board of State Canvassers on Thursday certified a ballot bill that would loosen Michigan's restrictions on human embryonal stem cell research, the Detroit Free Press reports (Bell, Detroit Free Press, 8/22). The board base the group Cure Michigan submitted nearly 500,000 signatures championship the proposal, which were 100,000 more than the needful minimum to place a proposal on the balloting in the state (Heinlein, Detroit News, 8/22).
The official wording of the ballot measure says that it will expand use of human embryos for whatever research permitted under federal law case to the following limits: the embryos are created for prolificacy treatment purposes; are not suitable for implantation or are in excess of clinical inevitably; would be discarded unless used for research; were donated by the person seeking prolificacy treatment; provide that stalk cells cannot be taken from human embryos more than 14 days after cell division begins; nix any person from merchandising or buying human embryos for stem cell inquiry; and prohibit state and local laws that foreclose, restrict or discourage stem cell research, future therapies and cures (AP/MLive.com, 8/21).
Joe Schwarz -- a doc and early Republican appendage of Congress who heads the Cure Michigan safari -- aforementioned, "What we are talking about here is providing cures for people, providing therapies for people. In this century, a legal age of therapies and cures will be from genetical therapy and cellular therapy and not from pop chemical compounds, which is what we've done all our lives. So this is a movement forward" (Martin, AP/MLive.com, 8/21). Critics of the proposal have opposed it on religious and moral grounds. David Doyle, a spokesperson for Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science and Experimentation, said the opening move would unmake a 1978 law ban the wipeout of human embryos and leave in question a 1998 law of nature prohibiting human cloning. "It goes excessively far, has too many loopholes and would allow unlimited experimentation on human embryos," Doyle said (Detroit News, 8/22).
According to the Detroit News, proponents and opponents of the measure ar expected to spend a combined $20 million or more on their campaigns (Detroit News, 8/22).
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