According to the website for the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, located in Kansas City, they anticipate future growth of their $300 million facility that includes, “a 600,000 square-foot expansion every decade, in perpetuity. The first expansion (“Phase II”) is slated for completion in 2009, but the planned expansion will occur only if Missouri voters approve the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative to protect early stem cell research, treatments, and cures that are legal under federal law.” The problem is that, as the website states, this research is ALREADY LEGAL!! The University of Missouri is currently conducting research using human embryos so why does the Stowers Institute need a constitutional amendment passed in order to build a facility to conduct perfectly legal scientific research?

The answer, my friends, is money – and lots of it. James and Virginia Stowers have personally given well over $28 million to the Amendment 2 campaign and could stand to gain substantially more dough if the amendment passes.

We do not need a constitutional amendment to provide Missourians with stem cell therapies and cures. This research is already perfectly legal in Missouri. Essentially what the biotech industry, specifically the Stowers Institute, is trying to do is protect itself from the possibility of any future “discouraging” legislation – “[A]ll state and local laws…and other governmental actions shall be construed in favor of the conduct of stem cell research…No state or local law…shall (i) prevent, restrict, obstruct, or discourage any stem cell research…or (ii) create disincentives for…such research, (7)” and ask the taxpayers to pay for the research – “no state or local government body or official shall eliminate, reduce, deny, or withhold any public funds provided or eligible to be provided to a person that lawfully conducts stem cell research, (5).” Source: Amendment 2 Language

This does not mean that the Stowers’ are bad people, “Jim and Virginia Stowers are cancer survivors, visionaries and philanthropists. They both genuinely believe in the future of embryonic stem cell research. But there’s also a lot of money riding on this Amendment 2. Voters in Missouri should be aware.”