Ambika Kandasamy, Author at San Francisco Public Press

Ambika Kandasamy

Ambika Kandasamy is a freelance journalist. She got her start in journalism as reporter and assistant news editor at the San Francisco Public Press where she wrote about climate change policies, human trafficking laws, economic development initiatives and other topics. Since then, she has worked as social media producer at Media Cause, news editor at GlobalPost, managing editor at Shareable and audience engagement editor at FRONTLINE (PBS). She has received the Women Immigrants Fellowship from New America Media, the Logan Science Journalism Fellowship from the Marine Biological Laboratory, the Diversity Fellowship from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Journalists in Aging Fellowship from the Gerontological Society of America. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University.

News

Reversal on stem cell research calls state funding into question

03.16.2009

By Ambika Kandasamy, Research Editor

Arnold R. Kriegstein/ Christine Jegan

With President Obama’s executive order to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research earlier this week, some think Proposition 71 — California’s answer to funding the controversial issue — now lacks rationale.

Prop. 71, approved by 59 percent of voters in November 2004, was the state’s way of bypassing former President George W. Bush’s restriction on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. It provided $3 billion in state bonds to fund research centers specializing in stem cell research.

But the federal reversal, combined with the economic climate that has forced the state to look for savings under every rock, has reignited a debate about whether such a huge investment by the state was a good idea.