Posted on 11/12/2005 3:57:52 PM PST by hocndoc
Embryo cloning requires human eggs, which are typically donated by women in a process that requires a month-long series of hormone injections followed by a minor but not risk-free surgical procedure. Because of the modest but real health risks involved, researchers who perform the procedure are required to get informed consent from donors and fulfill other ethics requirements.
For many months after Hwang's 2004 publication, rumors had spread in scientific circles that the eggs Hwang used to achieve that landmark result had been taken from a junior scientist in his lab. That situation, if true, would be in violation of widely held ethics principles that preclude people in positions of authority from accepting egg donations from underlings. The rules are meant to prevent subtle -- or not-so-subtle -- acts of coercion.
Questions have also circulated as to whether the woman received illegal payments for her role.
Schatten said that Hwang had repeatedly denied the rumor and that he had believed Hwang until yesterday. "I now have information that leads me to believe he had misled me," Schatten said. "My trust has been shaken. I am sick at heart. I am not going to be able to collaborate with Woo Suk."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Those cloned human embryos are then "disaggregated" or destroyed in order to attempt to culture "patient specific stem cells."
It is illegal in Korea, where the veterinarian has his laboratory, to pay for women to undergo the oocyte harvesting, whether the future purpose is to make an embryo by in vitro fertilization (IVF) that is destined for implantation in a woman for reproduction or for the purpose of making a cloned human embryo by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT or NT). Last week, one of the physicians associated with the veterinarian's lab was arrested on charges that he was involved in a scheme to buy and sell oocytes and embryos for women who wish to have a baby.
The work at the clone and kill lab in South Korea will be stunted.
And just as well: the coercion of a lab assistant into medical and surgical procedures is just this side of human trafficking - what used to be known as slavery.
There's more about last week's arrests at my blog, www.LifeEthics.org
Big news about corruption in Korea's cloning for stem cells!
It's back to that ole saying about letting the nose of a camel into the tent.
Beat me to the punch, bump!
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The Houston Chronicle has pubished the news, too:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3456254
I wonder if there now will be any interest in my latest novel after this, since the theme is somewhat close to the realities? [Evil Interrupted]
Sometimes reality is wilder than anything we could write, isn't it?
The allegation of harvesting large number of eggs from lab assistants has been circulating for a while. According to this, the stem cell research at Hwang's lab required plentiful supply of human eggs, and some wondered how his lab managed to secure so many.
That's one way to get fresh material: use the young women in your lab.
There's an interesting comment on the information attached to the blog.bioethics.net post, evidently from someone in the Korean research community.
http://blog.bioethics.net/2005/11/is-korean-stem-cell-revolution.html
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