Professors conducting stem cell research at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine said they support a state proposal to implement a 6 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery. If passed, the proposal would fund roughly $100 million a year specifically for stem cell research, according to a press release.

“We’re dealing with a small cluster of (embryonic stem) cells with no possibility of being anything else unless they’re put in a woman’s uterus,” said Dr. Jack Kessler, a Feinberg professor and adviser to the campaign. “Then (the stem cells) could be used to save human lives and alleviate a lot of human suffering … (public funding) will let us do things we only dreamed about.”

In November Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes proposed to fund a new state medical research institute and award grants and loans to Illinois universities and other Illinois research facilities conducting controversial stem cell research through a $1 billion bond over 10 years. The 6 percent state tax only would apply to elective cosmetic surgery such as face-lifts, liposuction and Botox injections. Reconstructive cosmetic surgery costs would not be taxed.

The state Senate and House will vote this spring to decide whether Hynes’ proposal will appear on the ballot in the November 2006 general election.

“I am well aware that the state faces great financial difficulties, but I want to be very clear here: what I am proposing is self-funded by this very narrowly defined luxury tax that is applicable to less than 2 percent of the population,” Hynes said in the press release.

The new Illinois Regenerative Medicine Institute is modeled after the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which will fund stem cell research in California through a $3 billion bond. Feinberg Prof. Richard Burt said Illinois should follow California’s example, because there is a future in embryonic stem cell research.

“It’s a great economic boom,” said Burt, who has helped pioneer adult stem cell (stem cells collected from the blood or the bone marrow) transplants as treatment for patients with autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. “Universities will spin off tech companies and it’s going to continue to make California grow.”

Despite these expectations of economic growth and innovations in medicine, the Catholic Church and religious conservatives continue to oppose stem cell research. The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, a non-profit Christian organization of bioethicists, said studying embryonic stem cells prevents potential human lives from beginning.

“Human beings require a proper environment to live,” said Sarah Flashing, director of public relations. “To take that environment away doesn’t make us less human. It makes us less likely to survive.”

Hynes’ proposal opposed reproductive human cloning and promised adoption of “strict ethical guidelines.” But Flashing said that Hynes is not being “completely forthcoming.”

“He’s not speaking of therapeutic cloning, and they’re exactly the same,” Flashing said. “Cloning at large is the issue. (Hynes’ proposal) leaves the door open for therapeutic cloning.”

Therapeutic cloning would produce a healthy copy of a sick person’s tissue or organ and be used for transplant, so patients would no longer have to rely on organ transplants from donors.

State funding of embryonic stem cell research would supplement federal funding. And unlike federal policy, state funding could be used for therapeutic cloning, Kessler said.

“Therapeutic cloning is not the same as cloning human beings, but (federal policy) forbids that kind of work,” said Kessler, who has been studying stem cells for 15 years to learn how they can treat spinal cord injury and stroke.

It would be more unethical to throw away unwanted embryonic stem cells without studying them because of their potential to save lives, he said.

“People often think (embryonic stem cells) look like human beings, but we’re talking about 150 cells,” Kessler said. “(It’s) impossible to believe it is ethically superior to throw embryonic cells into the trash than save human lives.”

Reach Helena Oh at [email protected].