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Genetic Engineering News Interviews Former President Bill Clinton

Posted on: Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

Former President Bill Clinton says other U.S. states should follow California's lead and make comparable financial commitments to fund stem cell research, reports Genetic Engineering News (GEN; www.genengnews.com). He thinks that such moves might add up to the amount of money that the federal government would have allotted if no stem-cell funding ban existed, according to the October 1 issue of GEN.

"We're going to lose a lot (of scientific) talent unless we have more independent efforts like the one in California," he told GEN's publisher, Mary Ann Liebert, during an interview at his office in Harlem in New York City.

Stem cell research and the potential loss of U.S. scientific talent to other countries were among a number of topics addressed during the GEN interview. The former president also discussed the work of the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative to combat the disease in developing countries, where more than 90% of the 40 million people worldwide who have HIV/AIDS live. "In America, (people) pay for the complement of (HIV) tests somewhere between $200 and $400 a year," he said. "We've got it down to $20 a year in the developing world."

The former president is particularly concerned over the reluctance of many pharmaceutical companies to make and sell vaccines because of cost and liability issues.

"I tried to get a bill passed through Congress to take some of that burden off of (drug companies) by giving (them) a big tax credit for work in the development of any kind of vaccine or medication in areas where the only companies that could do the research are in rich countries and most of the people who have the problem are in poor countries. They can't be expected to shoulder that burden on their own or just in return for a modest amount of government support on the research," he said. "The whole structure of the way we fund research in areas like vaccines is a problem. You have to almost immunize people from liability to get people to develop vaccines."

President Clinton also believes that there needs to be a serious effort made in the U.S. to get young minorities and women into science and technological fields. "It's critical to America's long-term viability: not only economic viability, but just as a society as a healthy place," he pointed out.

Genetic Engineering News is published 21 times a year by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. For a copy of the October 1 issue, please call 914-740-2122, or email: ebicovny@liebertpub.com

Source: Business Wire

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