Last week's news about the "world's first embryo bank" brought much-needed attention to the accelerating marketization of baby-making. Many reactions - including our own - stressed either the retail and promotional innovations of the new embryo business model, or the notoriously minimal regulation of the assisted reproduction industry.

It's worth considering as well the production end of the business. Anne Sommers of the American Association of People with Disabilities points to this suggestive excerpt from an announcement on the website of the Texan embryo entrepreneur, who calls her one-stop shop the Abraham Center of Life:

In the process of screening donors, we select only those that have clean medical backgrounds...we do require that all male donors are college educated (most of them have doctorate degrees), and that most of our female donors have had some college...The embryos that are available have all been medically 'graded.'

Writing as guest columnists in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Osagie Obasogie and Parita Shah hope for a new chapter in the stem cell saga:

Partisan politics has led traditional Democratic champions of government oversight for the common good to forget that Big Biotech -- not unlike its older siblings Big Pharma and Big Oil -- is an emerging multibillion-dollar industry that needs regulation to prevent abuses and promote the public interest. Otherwise, in 25 years or so, today's shocking $3-a-gallon gas may be a distant footnote to what your doctor's bill might look like.

As we look to the new Congress and the 2008 elections, let's hope the stem cell debate can be conducted more thoughtfully. If federal funding is expanded, a real debate can commence -- not on whether embryonic stem cell research should take place but on how and what kind. And, with federal funding in place, policymakers, scientists and voters alike will be in a position to talk about the kind of oversight needed to ensure that this research moves forward with common sense and common decency.

Fourth-quarter financial reports are out, and it looks like Genentech's aggressive pricing of some of its drugs -- as if they are abstract widgets rather than medicines that people depend upon -- has paid off handsomely: profits have surged by 75%. Check out this post from November on why we should be paying more attention to this.

Elliot Spitzer

While last week's passage of the stem cell research bill by the House of Representatives made a big splash, it's really almost a non-event. It will simply replay President Bush's veto from last year. The real stem cell funding news was in Albany. There, New York's new governor is proposing that some serious public money back embryonic stem cell research. But the proposal may not be what first meets the eye.

Liberal darling Gov. Elliot Spitzer proposed $2 billion for stem cell and other biotech research, paid by bonds. Since California's $3 billion program, this is the first stem cell research proposal of real significance; the other "stem cell states" have been setting aside small, token amounts. New York's proposal would need to be approved by both houses of the state legislature, as well as by voters. It remains unclear how the program would balance the stem cell component with the other biomedical research.

What is clear is that, from the perspective of rescuing human embryonic stem cell research from President Bush's policy, such state programs are less and less relevant. Bush's restrictions on federal support will almost certainly be quickly repealed by the next president, regardless of his or her party. New York's funds wouldn't be available until mid-2008 at the soonest, while a new president will be inaugurated in January 2009.

It's simple: If the goal is saving lives, shouldn't embryonic stem cell research compete for public research dollars on equal footing with other biomedical endeavors? If so, then why set aside billions of state dollars for this fairly narrow range of work? One possible answer is that the work is, in fact, not so narrow. Both California's program and New York's proposal can support other biomedical research.

Perhaps sugar coating a multi-billion dollar subsidy for the biotech industry with a layer of politically-sweet stem cell research makes the pill go down smoothly for voters in blue states. The question remains, though, whether this is the right medicine for what ails New Yorkers and Californians.