Here is one I missed. From the burning the village to save it department, we have the tale of the lottery privatization bill in the Senate. Niki Kelly had an article on the passage of the lottery plan in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette entitled Changes aid passage of lottery plan. Generally, the bill seeks to privatize the Indiana lottery to a private vendor. Proceeds from the privatization are reportedly needed as part of the Governor’s effort to fight brain drain from the state of Indiana by giving scholarships to Hoosier students. Also, a big chunk of the money would go into a “life sciences fund.”
Life sciences refers to:
Research in bioscience, biotechnology, biomedicine, medical device technology, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, bioenergetics, health care engineering, nanotechnology within the life sciences field, agri-sciences, and other related health disciplines and disciplines considered life sciences.
Thanks to an amendment introduced by Senator Drozda, no grants containing money from the fund may be used to conduct embryonic stem cell research. The restriction is not solely on human embryonic stem cell research, it is on all embryonic stem cell research. So, for example, Purdue would have to take great efforts to make sure to keep the money away from any research that might involve, say, mouse or fruit fly stem cells in some way.
I don’t think an anti-science stance is going to be any more helpful than taking an anti-gay position in making sure that our best and brightest minds stay in the state. At the very least, we’re sending a mixed message by proposing to sell off a valuable state asset in the name of fighting brain drain, then restricting some pretty basic research for reasons that are arbitrary at best.
Fortunately, the bill has been referred to the House Rules committee and, I believe, the deadline for committee action has passed.
[tags]privatization[/tags]
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