According to a June 11 decision by the Empire State Stem Cell Board, stem cell researchers in New York State will be able to seek access to public money to pay women, who donate their eggs for research, the "expenses, time, burden and discomfort" involved in the egg-donation procedure.

The decision by the aforesaid Board will make New York the country's first state to hand out an appropriate payment to women egg-donors. The Board, which decides how the $600 million in state funding for stem cell research is spent, has decided that women egg-donors can receive an amount to the tune of $10,000 for donating eggs, which it says is a painful and at times risky process.

Though the instructions of the National Academy of Science forbid payments to women for eggs used in stem cell research, researchers have noted that engaging inappropriately paid donors has not brought much success.

Justifying the payment to women egg-donors, Susan Solomon, founder and CEO of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, said: "If you're donating oocytes, there is time and burden. "And in our society, we compensate for time and burden."

Conveying the Empire State Stem Cell Board's decision to the Washington Post, the Board's Vice Chairman David Hohn said that breaking "new territory" the potential of stem cell research will be enhanced manifold.