Inaccurate Study Claims Michigan Law Against Unethical Research Hurts Economy
A recent study entitled “Michigan Stem Cell Economics Study” by Wayne State University Professor Allen Goodman makes various claims about what Michigan’s law against using human embryos as research materials “cost the State and its citizens.” The study was paid for by proponents of killing and cloning human embryos for research including the Michigan Citizens for Stem Cell Research and Cures.
In the study, Goodman borrows ideas from previous studies in California and Missouri which were released before embryonic stem cell ballot proposals in those states and which were also paid for by proponents of killing embryos for research. Goodman estimates how much money would be saved in Michigan if the cost of treating certain medical conditions decreased by 1%, the nof jobs in the biotechnology industry increased by 1% and if there was a 2% reduction in work absenteeism due to improved health.
While the study painstaking adds all the numbers up, it makes absolutely no attempt to show how passing Proposal 2 and changing Michigan’s law against using and killing human embryos for research experiments would lead to any of the changes mentioned above.
Arbitrary estimates
The study calls its completely arbitrary 1% estimates “conservative” and “modest” but provides no rationale for how passing Proposal 2 would lead to these 1% changes. Professor Goodman pulls these estimates completely out of thin air. The study also provides no reasoning for why 1% changes are “conservative” estimates. The reader is simply left to believe 1% is “conservative” because the study says its “conservative.” In fact, estimating that 1% changes will occur in all of these area by changing Michigan’s current law is completely unreasonable. There is no evidence that changing Michigan’s law would provide a .0001% change much less a 1% change. For comparison sake, the California stem cell/economics study, which analyzed the possible economic impact of a California spending $3 billion in tax dollars on embryonic stem cell research, also used 1% as its arbitrary estimate. So Goodman’s study of Michigan would have readers believe the same 1% changes to the economy will occur in Michigan by allowing researchers to kill human embryos in Michigan (as opposed to merely importing embryonic stem cell lines from other states) as would occur in California where $3 billion in tax dollars are being spent on this research. The study does this without providing any reasoning for how or why this would occur. The California estimates which were based on spending $3 billion in tax dollars were called by one proponent of embryonic stem cell research “hopelessly optimistic.”
Reading the crystal ball
More jobs?
The study’s estimates on increasing the number of biotech jobs in Michigan
are completely preposterous. There is no reason to believe changing Michigan’s
law on killing human embryos would provide a 1% increase in the biotechnology
jobs in Michigan. This is like someone claiming removing small restrictions
on headlight manufacturers in Michigan would lead to a 1% increase in the
number of Michigan’s automotive jobs. Embryonic stem cell research is a
sliver of a sliver of the biotechnology industry. Goodman doesn’t even take
the time to find out how many embryonic stem cell researchers are currently
employed in Michigan to see if adding 443 new biotechnology jobs due to
embryonic stem cell research would even be feasible.
Cloning,
tax dollars?
One facet missing from the newspaper articles describing the study is how the study hints at the possibility of using Michigan tax dollars to pay for embryonic stem cell research and possibility of legalizing human cloning in Michigan. In the section of the study on stem cell research laws, Michigan’s ban on human cloning is mentioned and is cited as evidence that Michigan has “the most restrictive laws.” The study also notes that “a commitment of even $15 million could demonstrate tremendous state support for the science” and calls spending $15 million in tax dollars on embryonic stem cell “a modest public investment.”
Proponents of unrestricted and unregulated research on human embryos will do anything to pass Proposal 2, including paying for a shoddy research paper which promises economic improvement without ever providing reasoning for how that supposed economic improvement will take place. Unrestricted and unregulated research on human embryos will not lead to an economic improvement.