New Jersey - Digital Publishing

As president of the New Jersey Association for Biomedical Research, Jayne Mackta plans to educate policymakers on the
importance of animal testing, and convince her industry of the importance of defending the right to conduct such research.
Spending a career in the crosshairs
Biomed association chief has advised on abortion, animal testing
BY JARED KALTWASSER
TO SAY JAYNE MACKTA is battle-tested
would be an understatement.
In the 1980s, she worked with a support
group counseling couples with genetic
defects, and found herself in the thick of
the abortion debate. For the past two decades,
she’s faced off against animal rights
groups to argue that animal testing is vital
to the research that yields the world’s
medical breakthroughs.
That battle has been equally heated, if
somewhat obscure.
BY ANDREW KITCHENMAN
INSTEAD OF GETTING socked with an annual
spike of $300 per worker in unemployment
insurance taxes next year, the state
will mete out less pain to employers over
a longer period of time under a bill introduced
in Trenton that seeks to shore up the
state’s defi cit-ridden UI fund, which now
owes $1 billion to the federal government.
The Assembly and Senate bills give employers
predictable UI tax increases — averaging
$130 per worker — for the fi scal year
beginning July 1, 2011. UI taxes are expected
to rise again for the following two years,
eventually hitting the $300 increase.
By steadily increasing the UI contributions,
the bills make the best of a tough
situation — and give employers the information
they need to budget future labor
“I would say that most people are not
in the middle,” said Mackta, president of
the New Jersey Association for Biomedical
Research. “They’re totally outside the fray.”
Mackta fi rst joined NJABR in 1989,
when the fl edgling organization was trying
to fi nd its wings in the face of tremendous
pushback from groups that equate animal
research with animal cruelty.
Her previous work, with a genetic support
group, included counseling couples
who carried genes for diseases about their
medical options, which include the po-
costs, according to Laurie Ehlbeck, New
Jersey director of the National Federation
of Independent Business.
“Nobody’s happy about having an
increase,” Ehlbeck said, though she was
pleased a consensus has formed to support
the bills, which are backed by both busi-
litically delicate option of terminating a
pregnancy if the fetus is affected with the
disease. As NJABR searched for a leader,
associates in the pharmaceutical industry
looked to Mackta.
“They reached out to me and said,
well, you’ve been fi ghting that battle —
how would you like to fi ght the animal
rights people?” Mackta recalled.
Mackta led the organization until
2008, when she left to start a new group,
Global Research Education and Training —
GR8, for short. The group promotes high
animal-care standards in research interna-
> See BIOMED on page 9
Bringing predictability to grim UI tax increases
Bill aims to help execs plan as state shores up jobless benefi ts fund
“Nobody’s happy about
having an increase.”
Laurie Ehlbeck, N.J. director of the National
Federation of Independent Business
ness and labor.
The bills are based on recommendations
from the unemployment insurance
task force appointed by Gov. Chris Christie,
which includes three representatives
each from business and labor. The task
force released its fi rst report Feb. 25.
In addition to phasing in the UI tax
increases, the bills raise the amount of
money that must accumulate in the UI
fund in order to trigger a decrease in taxes
— a change supported by business groups
seeking to reduce uncertainty and fl uctuations
of future tax increases.
The bill is fair to labor and businesses,
said Edward Fedorko, executive director
of the Mechanical & Allied Crafts Council
of New Jersey.
“It’s not a good situation, but we have
to be worried about the debt that has to be
> See UI on page 8
www.njbiz.com njbiz ◆ March 7, 2011 5
Christina Mazza
Golf Courses
in New Jersey
did you know New Jersey has
291 golf courses
9 %
are Audubon Society
certi ed, double the
national rate.
25,000 acres of golf courses
$1.8 billion:
total annual
economic impact on N.J.
26,500 jobs paying
$1 billion in annual wages
$500 million in taxes paid
annually by golf courses
Top six counties by
number of golf courses:
Monmouth . . 30
Bergen . . . . 22
Morris . . . . 21
Burlington . . . 19
Essex . . . . . 18
Somerset . . . 17
Some famous courses:
Private:
Baltusrol, Spring eld
Pine Valley, Pine Valley
Trump National Golf Club, Pine Hill
Public:
Blue Heron Pines, Egg Harbor
Ballyowen Golf Club, Hamburg
Royce Brook, Hillsborough
Sources: The New Jersey Golf Course Owners Association,
the Rutgers University Economic Advisory Service,
New Jersey Communities Online