American Politics Journal

A Mickey Mouse Stem-Cell Story
How the Rodent-Blood Problem Benefits a Certain American Biotech Firm
by Tamara Baker

Monday, August 27, 2001 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- You all have probably heard the story about the possibility that, due to the use of mouse blood as a growth medium, most -- if not all -- of the world's known stem cell lines may well be utterly useless for human biotech research.

If you click on that link and scroll all the way down, almost to the very end, you will see that one company, Geron of Menlo Park, California, claims to be the only company to have non-mouse-tainted human stem cell lines in its possession (Geron refused to say whether or not these lines had existed prior to our Dime Store Solomon's ban on all but the Mythical Sixty earlier this month).

If the name "Geron" rings a bell with you, then you probably remember my column from two weeks ago.
Seems that Geron had, long before Dime Store Solly's pronouncement, entered into an exclusive stem-cell licensing contract with a Texas university.

Now, remember how Bush and his buddies used the UTIMCO scam to use the Texas University System's Permanent Fund to enrich themselves? If not, check out Joe Conason's February 2000 article on that very subject.

Of course, it's already been reported that the Bushies knew beforehand that the mouse-blood problem existed. This then leads to two questions:

1) Why didn't they mention it at the time, if they knew about it?

Since only Geron allegedly has any mouse-free lines (and Geron refuses to say whether these lines were illegally created after the Boy-King's ban on new stem cell line creation), this is tantamount to a ban on government-funded stem-cell research.

2) Isn't it amazing how this suddenly benefits Geron, and only Geron?

Food for thought, my friends.