Although President Bush's veto of federal funding for embryonic stem (ES) cell research shifts this research to the private sector where it belongs, it should not be taken as a significant indication that the government is voluntarily reducing its funding of medical research and development. The veto, made primarily for religious reasons, will not substantially reduce the use of public funds for research; the money will merely be redistributed to support other, less promising research.

However, the good news is that if government funding of research is not on the decline de jure, its role and importance is decreasing relative to the private sector. In 1964, the federal government accounted for over two-thirds of medical and life sciences research, while today it backs only about a quarter.¹ True, absolute expenditures over roughly the same period increased from $1 billion to $16 billion²—so outlays are not shrinking—but that only emphasizes how much more quickly industry R&D efforts have grown. And, due in part to the Bayh-Dole Act³ of 1980, even non-federally funded academic R&D in the life sciences has grown faster in recent decades than federal funding.⁴

If and when academic- and industry-funded R&D makes government-funded R&D obsolete, it will be a thoroughly positive turn for anyone who stands to benefit from these man-made miracles. The long run, however, is small consolation to those who need these therapies today. To exclude for religious reasons this particular area of research from funding while other budgets are left untouched is indefensible.

Americans do not need government funding in medical research in order to come up with new cures. But as long as Americans are required to fund medical research through their taxes, then support ought to go to the most promising areas, regardless of the opinion of any given pressure group. ES cell research more than qualifies as a promising area of research.

Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, thus was not necessarily advocating a statist policy when in a television interview with Good Morning America he said, "Personally, I regret the loss of five or six years where real progress could have been made. ... Since when does America wait for somebody else to figure it out?" Advocates of capitalism can rightly regret that, too.

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¹ Zinner, "Medical R&D at the Turn of the Milennium." Health Affairs, 20 (2001):202

² Council of Economic Advisors, Economic Report of the President: Federal Budget Receipts, Outlays, Surplus or Deficit, and Debt, as Percent of Gross Domestic Produ8ct, Fiscal Years 1934-2001 (Washington: Council of Economic Advisors, 2000).

³ The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 allowed universities, nonprofit research organizations, and small businesses to own and patent the results of federally-funded research (Zinner, 2001). This makes it possible for these organizations and their spinoffs to develop their basic scientific discoveries into a marketable product for consumers. The result, although the product originated as a money coerced from taxpayers, is still better than if the government were to retain ownership of the intellectual property.

⁴ Ibid.

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