Michigan Proposal Would Require Universities to Report Stem-Cell Use

A proposal in the Michigan State Senate would require universities that conduct embryonic-stem-cell research to report to the state each year how many such cells they have received, created, stored, and used for research, the Detroit Free Press reported. The provision was inserted into a budget bill for higher education that the full Senate has not yet considered. The Republican lawmaker who sponsored the provision, State Sen. Tom George, said it was not an attempt to thwart the intent of a 2008 ballot initiative that eased restrictions on stem-cell research. “There is an interest in knowing, Are we creating thousands of new stem cell lines, or just two?” Senator George said.