Posted on 12/30/2005 6:30:55 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The stunning fall of South Korea's stem cell hero Hwang Woo-Suk set the stage for a ferocious new battle in the highly politicised debate over cloning in the United States.
Hwang's disgrace shocked stem cell research advocates and the anti-cloning lobby alike, and some observers say his tailspin could at least slow the race for breakthroughs in the lucrative bio-technology industry.
Investigators at Seoul National University said Thursday there was no evidence to prove Hwang's claim to have cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them that genetically match patients.
His supposed breakthrough was so important because scientists believe such clones could be implanted in patients to fight diseases like Alzheimer's and diabetes and tailoring them to individuals could cut the risk of rejection.
American politics is slumbering through the Christmas/New Year holiday so it could be next week before Washington's heavy hitters weigh in the latest twist in the stem-cell issue, which exploded across the 2004 election campaign.
But experts are asking how Hwang's disgrace will impact the US debate, and how the public and investors who fund biotech research will react.
Some observers believe Hwang's downfall, with its elements of human tragedy, is rooted in the temptations of an industry where pioneers can expect not only riches and fame but can change the stuff of life itself.
Scientists should therefore expect more scrutiny, argued Adil Shamoo, a professor at the University of Maryland's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
"They cannot be those monks on top of a mountain anymore," he said.
"There should be more means and procedures to detect and deter scientific fraud. Unfortunately they are not in place."
Some anti-cloning campaigners believe the drama in South Korea is the result of "hype" surrounding stem cell research they say is generated by the rich biotechnology industry.
"Where is it going to end? I think we need higher standards for science altogether, we don't need to race," said Andrew Fergusson, president of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.
"We don't need to do this in an ethical vacuum, we do need limits, boundaries and checks."
Scientific advances are subject to peer review, and oversight by journals in which they are published -- but it is not until a breakthrough is replicated by other laboratories that a discovery is seen to be fully authenticated.
In the United States, the government oversees the integrity of work done in the public health service through the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).
The US-based journal Science said Thursday there was "no question" it needed to retract Hwang's paper on the breakthrough published in the journal in May.
In the few months since Hwang's claims started to unravel, US stem cell advocates have argued President George W. Bush should relax limits on financing for stem cell research, to ensure that work can take place under proper constraints and scrutiny in the United States.
"Only a properly funded US stem cell research program will guarantee oversight and the protection of all involved," wrote bioethics experts Arthur Caplan and Glenn McGee in the Albany Times Union newspaper on November 20.
After months of agonizing, Bush permitted in 2001 public financing only for research on already harvested stem cells.
The White House rejects claims by Democratic opponents that Bush "banned" progress at the behest of conservative supporters.
There was no immediate reaction Thursday to Hwang's latest travails from the industry body Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).
But some commentators said Hwang's indiscretions should not derail the industry.
"Despite the recent blow to the nascent field of stem cell research, those with the chutzpah must continue to push forward with this noble and necessary endeavor," said biomedical researcher Yong Suh in an editorial Monday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
And Shamoo predicted that despite the uproar, private financing for stem cell research would not suffer permanent damage.
"I don't think it is going to influence the long range grants and contracts whatsoever ... to me, the greater concern is public confidence in the scientific enterprise."
Hwang Yoo Suk!
It could mean stem cell research with fetal material has very high technical hurdles. The Korean effort was backed with government and academic resources. It was not hamstrung by legal hurdles nor moral limits. Yet it failed, because it is not a very promising approach like core blood stem cells which is being medically applied as we speak. That is why private sources are not providing funds to the fetal stem cell research and pouring it into core blood stem cell research. The fetal stem cell researchers know that, so they have formed an alliance with the secularist and left in an attempt to pressure the government into providing funds and bullying officials with the accusation of religious ignorance.
The stem-cell cloning business seemed too good to be true, just like laetrile of several decades ago, and, as it turned out, it was!
Doncha just feel majorly bummed for those brainy voters who voted for Kerry/Edwards soley because they claimed if we were only smart enough to support the "miracles" of South Korean stem cell scientists, soon all the Christopher Reeves of the world would stand up and walk!
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