BIOSCAM: Short on cures and cash – California’s stem cell agency to ask voters for billions more. I remember when this was going to be the answer to George W. Bush’s cruel refusal to unleash the easy miracle cures that were just waiting to be deployed via embryonic stem cell research. And yet, 15 years and billions of dollars later, all they’ve produced is a demand for more cash:

Californians voted in 2004 to shell out billions of dollars in taxpayer money to fund cutting-edge stem cell treatments.

Proposition 71 could lead to cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s and other devastating diseases, voters were told. Actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, said in one campaign ad that the measure “could save the life of someone you love.”

But 15 years later, there are no readily available cures. And the state’s stem cell agency, which administered the bond money, is about to run out of funding.

And Michael J. Fox flushed his career with that commercial that basically said Republicans want people to die because they’re meanies.

Flashback: Adult Stem Cells Now the ‘Gold Standard.’ Related: MIT Technology Review: Will Embryonic Stem Cells Ever Cure Anything? “In fact, no field of biotechnology has promised more and delivered less in the way of treatments than embryonic stem cells.”

In 2004, of course, we couldn’t know how the science would turn out. But that didn’t stop Fox from making a mean-spirited ad for the Democrats. And how bad must he feel, to have flushed (at least) half his fan base for John Kerry?