Republican candidate wants pharmacuetical research facility in Iowa

Doug Gross, a republican candidate for Governor, says the state should build a new research facility where crops like corn could be turned into pharmaceuticals. Gross says he wants to make Iowa the bio-pharmaceutical capital of the world. He says the new farm bill will continue the same federal subsidies, which he says means farms will get bigger and bigger and the depopulation of rural Iowa will continue. Gross says to stem the tide of bigger farms and a dwindling rural population, Iowa needs to finance a lab where “bio-pharmaceuticals” could be created, and another lab where those products could be tested and gain F-D-A approval.Gross says one Iowa farmer from Rockwell City farmer’s growing corn he has to ship to France to be turned into drugs used to treat cystic fibrosis because there’s no U-S-based lab that does the work. Gross was Governor Terry Branstad’s top aide when the state built a laser center in Iowa City that didn’t pan out.Gross says Iowa didn’t have a history with lasers, but the state’s already set for bio-pharmaceuticals as we grow the things used to make the drugs. For example, some Iowa farmers are raising cattle which produce milk that’s a component of a new-fangled blood supplement. Gross says the state can use gambling taxes to finance the building.