{"id":1063408,"date":"2012-12-16T07:51:19","date_gmt":"2012-12-16T07:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longevitymedicine.tv\/appeals-at-the-california-stem-cell-agency-worthwhile-or-worthless\/"},"modified":"2024-08-17T20:29:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-18T00:29:19","slug":"appeals-at-the-california-stem-cell-agency-worthwhile-or-worthless-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/stem-cell-therapy\/appeals-at-the-california-stem-cell-agency-worthwhile-or-worthless-2.php","title":{"rendered":"Appeals at the California Stem Cell Agency: Worthwhile or Worthless?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Jon Shestack<\/b>, a patient advocate member<br>of the governing board of the California stem cell agency, weighed in<br>today on the virtues of the grant application appeal process at the<br>$3 billion research enterprise.<\/p><div><\/div><div>His remarks came in a &ldquo;comment&rdquo;<br>filed on the Duchenne item that appeared yesterday on this site. (His<br>full comment can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/a-singular-scientific-story-duchennes.html\">at the end of that item<\/a>.)<\/div><div><\/div><div>Shestack said that the handling of the<br>$6 million<b> CIRM<\/b> grant involving Duchenne research is &ldquo;a casebook<br>study on why the special(extraordinary) petition is worthwhile. There<br>was indeed new and relevant information that only became available<br>after grant review. Scientific staff and leadership flagged it.&rdquo;<\/div><div><\/div><div>The utility of the petitions is one of<br>the reasons that we ran the story about Duchenne and the team at<br><b>UCLA<\/b>. The extraordinary petition process is currently under fire by<br>both the <b>Institute of Medicine<\/b> and the stem cell agency itself, which<br>has appointed a task force to come up with changes. But, while the<br>petition process is certainly less than perfect, so is the peer<br>review\/grant review process.<\/div><div><\/div><div>The Duchenne application is not the<br>only &ldquo;case study.&rdquo;  An application by <b>Karen Aboody<\/b> of the <b>City of<br>Hope <\/b>is often cited as another case. There are undoubtedly others.<\/div><div><\/div><div>The petition process was adopted<br>several years ago by the board as a tool to manage willy-nilly<br>appearances of scientists before the CIRM governing board whose<br>applications were rejected by reviewers. Now the Institute of<br>Medicine has recommended the petitions be abandoned, saying they<br>undermine the integrity of grant review process. The IOM cited a<br>major controversy in Texas involving its cancer research agency as an<br>example of how grant reviews or the lack of them can go bad &ndash; not<br>to mention conflict of interest problems there.  CIRM has already<br>started to look for better solutions regarding appeals. Many of its directors<br>are troubled by emotional presentations from patients in<br>connection with petitions and the lack of adequate information to<br>make informed decisions on the spot about the contested matters.<\/div><div><\/div><div>Whether appeals can be put in a tidy,<br>scientific box is debatable. Researchers have the right, under state<br>law, to address the board on any issue whatsoever. And at least some<br>of them will continue to do so -- regardless of any appeals changes -- &nbsp;when millions of dollars and their<br>careers are at stake.<\/div><div><\/div><div>Opinions and decisions of CIRM<br>reviewers are not holy writ.  They can and do make mistakes, as we<br>all do. In making changes in the appeals process, the goal of the<br>agency should be to devise a public and transparent process rather<br>than enshroud it in more secrecy.  CIRM also should find a way to do<br>a much better job of communicating to applicants the availability of<br>appeals and precisely how to appeal when it becomes necessary. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/div><div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.longevitymedicine.tv\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/d330f_10000891-7919371517842017080?l=californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/div><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.longevitymedicine.tv\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/d330f_ROhqJSUEC28\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\">Source:<br><a href=\"http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/blogspot\/uqpFc\/~3\/ROhqJSUEC28\/appeals-at-california-stem-cell-agency.html\">http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/blogspot\/uqpFc\/~3\/ROhqJSUEC28\/appeals-at-california-stem-cell-agency.html<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jon Shestack, a patient advocate memberof the governing board of the California stem cell agency, weighed intoday on the virtues of the grant application appeal process at the$3 billion research enterprise.His remarks came in a &ldquo;comment&rdquo;filed on the Duchenne item &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/stem-cell-therapy\/appeals-at-the-california-stem-cell-agency-worthwhile-or-worthless-2.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1246878],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1063408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stem-cell-therapy","category-stem-cells"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}