Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Higher Education and Health and Media, Arts, Science, and Technology, to which was referred S.R. No. 108 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to request that the University of Hawaii conduct a study and make recommendations on the feasibility of encouraging stem cell research in Hawaii.

Testimony in support of the measure was received from the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine. Comments were submitted by the Hawaii Catholic Conference and the Hawaii Family Forum.

Your Committees find that an estimated 128,000,000 Americans suffer from the crippling economic and psychological burden of chronic, degenerative, and acute diseases, including diabetes, Parkinson's disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's disease. The costs of treatment and lost productivity of chronic, degenerative, and acute diseases in the United States run into hundreds of billions of dollars every year, and these economic estimates do not account for the extreme cost in human loss and suffering associated with these conditions.

Your Committees also find that stem cell research could lead to unprecedented treatments and potential cures for diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, and other diseases and offer immense promise for developing new medical therapies for these debilitating diseases.

Your Committees further find that publicly funded stem cell research, conducted under established standards of open scientific exchange, peer review, and public oversight, offers the most efficient and responsible means of fulfilling the promise of the use of stem cells in providing regenerative medical therapies.

However, because stem cell research, including the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research, raises significant ethical and policy concerns, public policy on stem cell research must balance ethical and medical considerations. As such, any stem cell research policy adopted by Hawaii must be based on an understanding of the science associated with stem cell research, grounded on a thorough consideration of the ethical concerns regarding that research, and crafted in a way that researchers will have the scientific and ethical tools necessary to fulfill the promise of stem cell research.

In light of these concerns, your Committees believe that in order to ameliorate any appearance of a conflict of interest, the University of Hawaii, a potential participant in such stem cell research, should not be the agency responsible for the study.

Your Committees have amended the measure by removing the University of Hawaii as the agency charged with the responsibility of conducting the study and inserting it its place the Legislative Reference Bureau. Your Committees have also amended the title of the measure to reflect this amendment.

Your Committees believe that conducting the study outlined in this measure is a complex task that would benefit from the assistance of an independent third party skilled in the research and development of policy issues. To that end, your Committees suggest that the Legislative Reference Bureau consider an organization such as the Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs to assist with the study.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Higher Education and Health and Media, Arts, Science, and Technology that are attached to this report, your Committees concur with the intent and purpose of S.R. No. 108, as amended herein, recommend that it be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, in the form attached hereto as S.R. No. 108, S.D. 1.