New York has become the first state to pay women for donating egg cells for taxpayer-funded research into embryonic stem cells, according to the Washington Post . New York’s Empire State Stem Cell Board will offer as much as $10,000 in state funds to a qualified donor. While in-vitro fertilization clinics usually pay donors, researchers who work with stem cells for therapeutic cloning face unclear rules depending on which state they live in. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences guidelines issued in 2005 discourage compensation to avoid the exploitation of poor people by labs. As a result, states such as California and Massachusetts are facing a significant egg shortage. Researchers are calling for a change to the compensations

rules, as reported in the journal Nature . The New York State Catholic Conference criticized the NYS payment plan, with an official calling it “a grossly unethical, dangerous and exploitative move that treats women’s body parts as commodities,” the Catholic Courier reported. Stem-cell research is set for growth as states have boosted public funding in the sector. Egg donors in New York will be compensated from a $600 million investment by the state. Deficit-heavy California has invested about $1 billion into its stem-cell initiative even as it struggles to cut state spending. Stem cell photo: National Institutes of Health

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NY State Sets Payments to Egg Donors for Stem-Cell Research