Stem Cell Transparency Sought

An oversight committee Tuesday urged the bond-funded California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to improve its transparency and accountability. CIRM was created as part of a 2004 ballot measure that authorized $3 billion in state general obligation bonds to finance stem-cell medical research.

The institute’s citizens financial accountability oversight committee voted to approve a series of recommendations from the Little Hoover Commission, a state watchdog agency. Those recommendations call for CIRM to improve efficiency and transparency in the way grants and loans are distributed, and to make future business practices more open.

“Californians overwhelmingly voted in 2004 to provide billions of public dollars to find cures for chronic, debilitating and deadly diseases that affect millions of Americans each year,” the oversight committee’s chair, state Controller John Chiang, said in a statement. “To ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent lawfully, wisely and successfully, the stem cell program must pursue the highest standards of transparency to be fully accountable to the public.”

California has issued about $916 million in GO bonds for CIRM, according to state treasurer’s office data.

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