Prime Human Cloning Researcher Humiliated

Starker_Kull writes "Today, the first scientist to clone human egg cells, Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, was forced to resign from his post for 'breaches of ethics'. It appears that the ethical breaches consisted of overzealous assistants who volunteered their own eggs for use. After Dr. Hwang declined the offer, the assistants secretly donated their eggs under false names. After Dr. Hwang discovered the deception, he tried to cover it up to protect his researchers - but the news eventually leaked out."

Resigned?

[Darlantan]

I really fail to see how this is something worth resigning over. So, his assistants were a bit overzealous, and he didn't know about it until it was too late. Yes, he tried to cover it up, but did he try to fudge any of the research? Does this make his science bad in any way? Seems pretty silly to me.

They paid for eggs (and they were from the team)

[putko]

It looks like there were some ethical violations -- where the current ethical system means no possibility of coercion (e.g. no eggs from within the team) and no payment for eggs.

Here is something [lewrockwell.com] on the ethics of donations (from some free market fans).

One thing seems obvious: if they'd had been able to easily buy eggs, it wouldn't have been a hassle: they'd never have gotten eggs from staff, and the problem would have been solved. The lack of trading in eggs prevented these guys from doing the research and complying with the ethical restrictions.

Here's a nice piece from the sadly discredited NY Times author, Martin Finkel (he lied a story and got fired), talking about a Kidney market in pre-GWII Iraq [mit.edu].

Re:Maybe I'm confused ...

[elgatozorbas]

But what exactly was unethical about lab workers also being donors in the first place?

The line between voluntary and reluctant donation is very vague because it can be assumed that lab workers can easily be put under pressure to donate their eggs. Afterwards it is hard to prove that they did it (in)voluntarily. To avoid this discussion their genetic material should not be used alltogether.

One thing still needs to be cleared up

[TVmisGuided]

I'm puzzled over something. How, exactly, does a woman donate an egg without anyone else knowing about it?

Sperm donations are easy to figure out (I'll leave the visuals to the reader's deranged imagination). But women? Unless I'm sorely mistaken, the extraction of a viable egg is a surgical procedure, and no matter how good Waldos have gotten over the years, I haven't heard of one sophisticated enough yet to allow a woman to perform that procedure on herself. So the question is, who performed the procedure, and who assisted?

"Three can keep a secret if two are dead." So goes the cliche. It's been proven accurate with this minor scandal. Unfortunately for the researcher, the gory details got out before he was able to either bring them forward himself or develop a solid-enough cover. But rather than looking to the surreptitious donors, I'd be looking for whoever did the egg extractions, and asking why they outed the mess. No publication credit? Money? Personality clash? Something I haven't thought of?

We now return to our regularly-scheduled slashdotting intellectual discussion, already in progress...

Re:Maybe I'm confused ...

[rxmd]

Whoah! That would rule out just about any scientist. Or anybody else doing any kind of work they care about.

I guess there's still a difference between a scientist doing research that he cares about (most of us do) and a biologist working with a cell culture that is technically his or her daughter.

Re:Maybe I'm confused ...

[flyingsquid]

Actually, yes, I screwed up and misread the Nature article- Hwang didn't pay out of his own pocket; the fertility expert, Roh, did- $1,430 per subject (OK, so where did he get all that money from? It says 20 women, that's almost 30,000 dollars). But something just smells wrong: the first allegations of graduate students donating eggs came out in 2004, they are then retracted, and only now it turns out there was a basis to this? That sounds like a coverup, not at all like people who are eager to clear the air over some honest mistakes. And my guess is a lot of people have an interest in supporting Hwang's version of the facts, particularly if these kinds of abuses were widespread. Finally, I think if this was really just an honest mistake on his part- instead of a scandal threatening to blow sky-high- his collaborator wouldn't have moved like he did to cut ties. When the rats start jumping off the ship, you start looking for leaks. Likewise, it sounds like he's being forced to resign. That sounds like serious damage control.

if so, you probably have never done research. its way too complex especially in the medical sciences field for one person to have first hand knowledge.

I am a researcher, which is why I find his excuse so laughable. It's a fairly strict hierarchy, and if I bent the rules or got myself into an ethical tar pit like this without asking my advisor first, he'd have my head. It's not impossible that a student could pull a stunt like donating her own ova for her advisor's research without asking for permission, if he kept her on a long enough leash and didn't pay attention what she was up to. Still, (A) you'd have to be running a pretty dysfunctional lab for that to happen, so it's your own damn fault if it does (knock on wood and pray I never eat those words by having a graduate student who gets me in hot water...). (B), it would take a lot of initiative and sticking your neck out to pull a stunt like that. Maybe his lab has a different culture, but in general I find that graduate school tends to discourage serious independence and initiative, not encourage it. Like I said, you live or die according to your advisor's whims, so you're not going to do anything that might piss him off without asking permission first. Overall, I find it far more likely that an advisor pressured his student into donating eggs than that a student would provide her own eggs and lie to her advisor.

Anyway, the reason I'm pissed off is over the idea of an advisor screwing over a graduate student, because I've been there. I had a narcissitic, abusive, borderline insane advisor; a big shot who got in popular magazines and everything. I know how bad things can get- and how little you can do about it. There are some incredible, wonderful people in science, but there are also some really devious bastards.

Such Insightfull Mods

[trollable]

Modded as flamebait and troll... Sorry but my post was very serious (but maybe not expressed correctly). I'm quite proud that this kind of research is forbidden in France. Not definitively, just for a few years until a consensus can be reached. Until the whole society agrees/disagrees about it. This exact story shows that some scientists won't follow ethics but you let them free to do human cloning. IMHO, this is a very dangerous step.