Slashdot Mirror
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."
...egg on his face.
sorry, but i will be here all week.
I for one welcome our secretly cloned female Korean researcher overlords.
Sorry.
But what exactly was unethical about lab workers also being donors in the first place?
~Rebecca
...this is a breach of eggthics, not ethics?
That's what he says, but you know how important it can be to save your face. More important than telling the truth, I would say...
Although he has resigned, the 17 identical copies of Prof. Hwang will continue to do his research for him.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I'm failing to see what the problem is with this, aside from him trying to cover it up. If the assistants wanted to donate their eggs why can't they? Is it wrong for scientists to contribute more than normal to their research, which they probably have a large interest in. If a scientist works more than 40 hours a week on something I don't see people getting up in arms about it. Science has always been personal. Why is this such a big deal?
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.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
Last time this story came around, it wasn't clear to me that this guy did not know his researchers had donated their eggs. If he'd been a cold bastard and put all the blame on the researchers in question as soon as he found out, he'd probably have got away with it. Instead he tried to protect them, and this is what he gets for it.
Ah well, no good deed goes unpunished, as the saying goes.
Oh no... it's the future.
So what you are saying is that there is a senior scientific position vacant where one of the perks could be described as "Research assistants keen to donate their eggs to the successful applicant".
Please form an orderly line... behind me.
Nobody seems to be alleging that undue coercion was used, though the reasons given for the donations do seem rather odd in my eyes. Is the scientific community being deliberately "politically correct" (for want of a better term) ?
His coverup is the biggest line of malarky you've ever heard. 'Secretly donating eggs'? How many women do you know who would willingly go through such a painful procedure? The Koreans are crazy, but not that crazy. This guy is full of crapola.
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 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.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
I think the good Dr has been a rather unfortunate here, by the sounds of it his researchers are entirely to blame. However he is ultimately responsible for the actions of his staff and this is why he has taken the decision to resign from his public appointments.
I wish more public figures acted with this level of integrity. We are seeing situations arise increasingly frequently where it turns out that no blame at all attaches it's self to public figures no matter what they or there staff/departments may have been engaged in and I hope the actions of this Dr can be a lesson to the next government minister who discovers his department has been acting illegally and realises that the excuse they didn't really bother to keep up to date with what their department was doing is not good enough.
The problem was not the eggs themselfs but the fact that he was alwasy making omlettes!
I don't know which version is correct, but the first time I saw this story reported the relevant facts were not that assistants had surreptitiously donated eggs, but that the primary researcher himself had compelled one or more assistants to donate their eggs.
Looks like a little further digging is in order to clear this up.
You'd better RTFA before you give Hwang any prizes -- this whole mess is only coming to light because a month ago, Gerald Schatten publicly announced he could no longer collaborate with Hwang's team because of possible ethical lapses. Hwang then tried to cover up the misdeeds of his staff... and now finally resigned.
Left unsaid in any coverage I've read is whether Hwang knew of any improper actions before Schatten's public announcement, but my guess is that Schatten first said something privately, then decided to go public when the response was inadequate. If there's a hero here, acting with a high level of integrity, it's Schatten, not Hwang.
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
He tried to do a cover-up, but ended up with egg (cells) all over his face.
I seem to remember that the reason this got out was that the female researcher that 'donated' the eggs accused the Dr. of forcing her to do so.
These stories are mutualy contadictive, so um.. someone is lieing.
To me the Dr's version sounds like an excuse an 8yr old would give to his parents: 'It wasn't me Mum! I was just protecting them! It was they who eat all the chocolates!'.
Ofcourse the Dr. might be telling the truth and that the researcher wasn't, but honestly, which sounds more reasonable?
This is what I heard, too!
From the BBC story, this sounds grossly unfair to Dr. Hwang.
According to the BBC, Dr. Hwang did not attempt to violate the policy, he did not even know about the fact that the women donated, and it is clear that he wasn't trying to circumvent the policy either. It sounds to me like he did nothing wrong.
Yes, he did lie to Nature about it, but I find his justification acceptable. While there are some ethical considerations that go into publishing a journal, Nature has no business conducting ethics investigations, and this particular aspect of the experiment had no bearing on the scientific validity of the results.
To me, this story mostly reflects poorly on Nature--attempting to pry into areas that really are none of their business--and the Korean research establishment.
Hats off to Dr. Hwang for being willing to take the blame for something he didn't do. I suspect that his motivation is to keep human cloning research going, and he knows that the media and politicans would continue a feeding frenzy over this as long as he stays in his job.
that these researchers used their own, rather than an assitant's cells.
When this story broke, the first instance of it was that the assistant was forced. Now, we have that she donated. Which is right? Did she change the version so that she could keep her job? We will never know the truth.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The ehtics rules are their because it's an area ripe for abuse. Junior researchers could be pressured and thus "voluntary" might not really be voluntary. As the story goes, the donations were properly refused and then given anonymously. It might seem that there was no pressure and therefore legit. Even here it's a tad dicey. First because it puts pressures for unethical behaviour on competing scientist who lack such "enthusastic" assistants. Second because the story is perhaps too pat and one could imagine this story is a rule dodge to conspire to permit "voluntary" donations. E.g. if you can pressure someone to donate an egg it's not a stretch to pressure them to donate it anonymously as well. And third there's all sort of ways an avuncular senior research might hint and cajole a naive adoring junior researcher to act in this manner without actually telling her what to do.
So the point is it's ripe for abuse and the fact that a cover-up happened is what changed this from a grey area to a black and white one. One the otherhand there have been famous examples on medical researchers using their own selves to supply stuff. For example. craig ventor the human genome researcher turned out also to be one of the 5 test subjects whose DNA was sequences first.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Woo-Suk, Hwang
Adding insult to injury ...
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
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...
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
"I did not have asexual relations with that woman."
Yeah now that he's free, he'll have a new job in.... 3,2,....*ding*!
They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist; They came for the Socialists, and I didn'
Same thing is going on with this submission. The linked BBC story says nothing about Dr. Hwang being forced to resign. In fact, it sounds like he resigned voluntarily. The submitter added the "forced" and "humiliated" part himself.
It's almost as if some slashdot submitters don't like what this guy is doing and are making up whatever spin and hyperbole they can to discredit him. Shame on the editors for not reading the linked articles to check if the submission description is accurate.
"You do such an excellent job, I wish I had ten of you around here. Hey, wait a minute!...."
What does this button do...
I don't care about eggthics or anything like that... i just don't want them to use any sweatshop eggs. Cage-free, Farm-fresh, baby! That's why i have my little Jerry!
This sig used to be really funny...
I know. I know.
You hate puns and I should stop calling you Surely.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The BBC article only discusses the egg donations made by his research assistants. Here are some excerpts from a longer piece in the New York Times (reg req) which describe a different problem:
"His world reputation is now expected to suffer a major dent over his admissions that he lied to an international scientific journal over eggs obtained in what many see as an ethically murky manner. [...] Roh Sung Il, the administrator of MizMedi Hospital in Seoul, disclosed at a news conference on Monday that during 2002 and 2003, he made payments of $1,400 to each woman who donated eggs. Egg donation is an unpleasant procedure that involves a week of daily hormone shots, culminating with the extraction of eggs through a hollow needle. "For those who go through discomfort and sacrifice, it seemed natural to give some money as compensation," Dr. Roh told reporters. [...] Dr. Hwang said he had wondered why the hospital had become a regular source of eggs, while other hospitals were having difficulties. "I raised the matter, but Roh Sung Il, the administrator of MizMedi Hospital in Seoul, said that there were no problems in the procurement process and I did not raise the issue afterwards," he told reporters. After the ethical scandal flared this week, dozens of women in Dr. Hwang's Internet fan club have sent e-mail messages volunteering their eggs.
Confirming the other longstanding rumor, South Korea's Health Ministry said Thursday that an ethics investigation at Seoul National University had found that the two junior scientists had given their own eggs for research. But it said those donations had not violated ethics guidelines because they were voluntary.
As the scientists' egg donations were neither "coerced or coaxed" nor "aimed at making profit," there has been "no violation of ethics guidelines," Choi Hee Joo, a Health Ministry spokesman, told reporters before Dr. Hwang's announcement.
In May 2004, Nature raised ethical questions concerning the origin of Dr. Hwang's eggs. At the time, Dr. Hwang denied that researchers in his team had donated their own eggs to his research.
In an interview last May, he said all eggs had been harvested from volunteers without payment.
Fabulous strategy. Every one is focused on the behavior of Professor Hwang Woo-suk. Media talk about ethics in research, etc. but completely hide the main point: Cloning of human embryos. This is unethical but they try to do it, not only Korea but in the US too. Let's avoid the debate by reporting a minor story. IMHO, the governments that allow such research are much more unethical than the professor. A scientist does research and should not care (as a scientist) about ethics (but he should as a human), he should just not break the law. OTOH, governements are fully responsible by not setting laws that limit such research. And media are responsible for not making the debate public. So don't be fooled. Forget about Mr Woo-suk and think what the world will be if cloning is allowed.
Million Dollar Screenshot
Don't mix up two facts. No, the researchers who donated their eggs didn't get paid for it. Some others were paid, though.
One thing to consider is that it was before any code of ethics was established even in US, let alone Korea. It wasn't illegal, and wasn't breach of any known code ethics. I'm not saying that it's OK just because there was no regulation. But, it's also not something you can simply blame them for the lack of ethics, either (not that the op did that, but in general).
whenever I see
a post like this
with very short lines,
it reminds me of bad
poetry
or perhaps,
the halting speech patterns
of William
Shatner
or Donald
Rumsfeld
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I think the reason it created waves in the scientific community is that researchers are expected to remain as distant as possible from their experiments as possible, in an effort to keep their observations as objective as possible.
The problem is not just personal attachment to the experiment. Any experimenter can't help being personally invested in any major experiment that he or she has designed or built. This is part why it's important to report facts in as unbiased a way as possible.
Rather, the problem is that egg donation, while safe, is nevertheless a significant medical procedure. It involves treatment with hormones, weeks of tests, and eventually a surgery to extract the eggs. So it is ethically quite important that any human subjects volunteer of their own free will, and have not been pressured or otherwise coerced into doing this.
And so it is quite improper for a member of the experimental team to volunteer in this way. There is no way to tell that they have not been pressured into it by their boss, or are doing it to gain favor with someone, or are whether their friends in the experiment may feel they must also volunteer, etc.
I mean, seriously. Am I alone in thinking that this sounds MORE like the morality police casting about desperately for a reason to discredit the man and his work?
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Top human cloning expert gets "humiliated." Great. Now this guy is going to go bat-shit insane, move to some small island and start wreaking havoc.
Next article is going to be "Humiliated cloning experts buys thousands of linen suits, panama hats, and a cane then moves to small tropical island."
Great....
Didn't I hear something about a huge stink over a genetric researcher who DEMANDED a lab assistant donate their eggs?
They are just cells. Who gives a crap?
Suks to be him!
I could understand if somewhat had a problem with using eggs by just anyone. (Not that I think use of eggs is inherently wrong or dangerous. I don't know against what the donors have to be protected, but well...)
But in this case the eggs were *voluntarily* donated. So what? Isn't THAT a reason to use them? And against what evil did the guy want to protect the donors?
Cloning is not a direct stem cell research problem. Fetal stem cells are harvested from fetuses: there's no shortage of such tissue, from abortions or potentially from cultured embryos otherwise discarded from in-vitro fertilization attempts, so cloning is an unnecessary expense and complication in such work.
But your friend may be in better luck than you realize. There is some fascinating work going on, involving the use of adult stem cells which naturally transform into specific tissues when the system needs them. This doesn't seem to require fetal cells from donors, but has been done for successful treatment of diabetes in some lab animals. If it turns out to be possible to get nerve cells to reform with stem cells at all, it may be possible to use adult stem cells from your friend to help create new nerve tissue.
He will just find a job at a company that has a different concept of morality.
He's prolly got 10 offers already.
Morality is relative anyway, and often gets in the way of progress.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The ability to coerce subordinates into giving time, money, or even body parts is high in the scientific research fields because there are so few good quality job openings and much pressure to produce results. Therefore the need to establish an ethical boundary against having lab workers or other subordinates contribute anything but paid (often, but not always) labor to the project.
However, this happened in Korea where there is overwhelming pressure on people (applied since they are born) to self-sacrifice and give more and more to a group cause. There is also enormous pressure to serve without question the next higher figure in the chain of authority.
The director of the project was most likely right in claiming that there was no pressure to actually placed or implied on the lab workers to give up their body parts. However the social pressure was overwhelming, and all the director had to do was mention that 'donors' were needed and the lab workers would comply.
This is the type of situation that the ethical guideline was established to prevent. The director would have realized that his subordinants would have delivered the eggs and should have taken stronger measures to prevent this from happening. However, given the cultural context, it is unlikely that the director felt that he should abide by the ethical constricture.
Sort of like American rock star mentioning that he enjoys fellatio to couple of backstage groupies. No pressure, no insinuations, but the need is serviced without question.
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.
Million Dollar Screenshot
We can only hope that during an interview he'll proclaim "Whoooo wanta some Whang?!?"
--falz
The eggs were donated voluntary with absolutely no pressure and no solicitation. Dr. Hwang Woo-suk did nothing wrong but has to be apologetic because of the oppressive governments.
Hey oppressive governments, if you're so concerned about ethics, why don't you make torture illegal for real and enforce anti-torturing laws by prosecuting soldiers, police, and government officials who engage in torture, cover up torture, or obstruct investigations of torture? Or would that be to ETHICAL for you? (And yes, this includes you, America)
Whenever a politician or news reporter talks about ethics, it's complete B.S. They act all high-and-mighty about stem cell research but evidently have absolutely no outrage against torturing people. I call B.S. on anyone who emanates fake outrage over stem cell research.
And the right quote, "You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs."
--Greg :-)
Many if not most studies promise confidentiality in return for participation.
Reputable research institutions take care to make sure to keep the data to participant data minimized.
Violating the donors privacy is unacceptable. In this sort of situation the researcher must reply "I am not able to provide any such information as per our standard confidentiality agreement with participants"
Never confirm or deny, just cite policy. How a major researcher got to this point without this basic rule of politics is beyond me.
Did somebody order a 12-inch petri dish?
bow chicka wow wow...
I just love Internet journalism:
From the caption of the picture tied to the article "South Korean cloning pioneer Woo Suk Hwang speaks to the nation during a news conference in Seoul, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2005"
The picture itself: a petri dish
Dr. Hwang cloned himself as a bacterium in order to speak to the press?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You're mistaking disinterested for dispassionate and uninterested. The ideal situation for a researcher is to be very passionate about the work, but not be passionate about a particular outcome. Disinterested means you don't have a vested interest in a specific result. Uninterested means the matter doesn't hold your attention. They are very different.
A scientist should be emotional about the experiment. Ego will be wrapped up -- good science will boost the ego, bad science will crush it. But if you're doing research with the goal of showing a specific result (rather than testing a hypothesis) you run the danger of tainting the results.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Sort of like American rock star mentioning that he enjoys fellatio to couple of backstage groupies. No pressure, no insinuations, but the need is serviced without question.
Are you saying that non-American rock stars are not eligible for certain types of groupie services?
I'm a British rock star, you insensitive clod!
In many confucian cultures juniors often feel great pressure to please their superiors.
It was not actually illegal when the junior team members dontated the eggs but since then the S Korean gov. has actually passed a law prohibiting it in a new "biotechnology ethics" law.
Personally I think it is a bunch of bs but I guess its difficult to understand unless you are part of the culture.
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
There has been a long standing debate in scientific circles between the influences of nature vs. nurture. The really significant problem with this question is that there are very few ways of designing controlled experiments for it. One method that has been used is to study cases of identical twins separated at birth. I am only slightly aware of this research and what I can remember is that it tended to only draw anecdotal conclusions and not empirical ones. The implications of having a significant understanding about the relationship of nature vs. nurture are immense. The ability to shape the world to a specific vision of human behaviour by means of manipulating just a small number of variables is very desirable for a lot of people given the instability and change that the human race is experiencing in these modern times.
The ability to clone humans in an unlimited fashion allows one to conduct controlled experiments to come to a conclusion about the nature-nurture problem. Of course, most concieveable experiments would be gross violations of human rights, but there would always be some crackpot that would get it done given a the existence of a viable human cloning technology.
I could go on to describe the winners and losers for different scenarios of a resolution to the nature nurture questions, but instead I will just recommend to you a book, "The boys from brazil" to inspire what kind of evil could be wrought given adequate knowledge about the make up of humanity.
Given all that, there are many people who believe that cloning research really is an area where we should not tread (at least not yet). Much in the same way that the development of nuclear weapons has given us the ability to destroy the habitiability of the earth (which we thankfully have not done yet), viable human cloning technology is potentially world-changing and the risk that the unforeseen consequences of it would be humanity destroying, its worth at least thinking twice about it before we proceed to develop it.
This "I for one welcome..." thing is used many times a day, and stopped being funny a long, long time ago. Look, I accept the fact that an original joke is difficult to assemble, but please, people... exercise a little discretion. Stop modding this up.
... from this new field, in general?
there is a saying "its only wrong if you get caught".
We all know another industry that practices that, don't we?
I sincerely doubt very much anyone would give a rat's *ss if instead of human eggs for clonning research, his lab worked with human hair for cosmetic research.
Which is quite ironic, since one of the main points in his whole field of research is that both things are to be approached with the same ethical guidelines.
Friend of the Wise, Brother of the Brave.
He's been walking on eggshells
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
. . . leaves me wondering what defines the "Prime Human". At least this guy wasn't researching the cloning of sub-prime humans. Given this, we should give him a break.
It looks like we have another stupid moderator running amok!
Hopefully the metamoderation team will reign in the idjot. What is off topic about this post? It looks pretty damn on topic to me! The reply looks pretty on topic as well.
Clearly we have an attempt at suppressing an opinion. This has to be about as bad as moderation can get I would say!
Here the reply gets a mod up = which IMHO it should because it is a good reply.
Yet the parent is modded down to a -1 in an obvious attempt to suppress the opinion expressed.
Slashdot really has to figure out a better way to control bad moderation.
This is a re-post of a previous news posting, but this time the entire tone of the submission is a reversal from the previous one.
In the previous post, the article said that the Dr pressured one or more of this lab assistants to donate eggs.
This new article is obviously trying to paint him in a better light, claiming he knew nothing of where the eggs came from , etc...
I think if he was forced to resign, it's pretty obvious the first story had more truth to it than the latter.
now that guy used his own DNA for sequencing the Human Genome,
and he hid the fact, but he never stepped down as a result of that.
and now he's busy making viruses from scratch.
These eggs were donated without his knowledge. They were donated before a law against such things was even passed. He attempts to cover for the researchers and his lab in the face of a rather silly law that might be used after the fact. As a result one of the most brilliant and important researchers in the world is forced to resign. I suspect extreme pressure from the US fundies somewhere in this. On the face of it these events make no sense. There must be some very serious factors behind the surface story. What are we not seeing in the news?
What is interesting to note is that many Koreans support what "Dr." Woo Suk Hwang did and claim that he did nothing wrong. The Korean government, in an investigation of the matter, concluded that Hwang acted ethically.
As I have said repeatedly, the Chinese and Korean notion of right and wrong is vastly different from the standard of right and wrong in the West: USA, Canada, Japan, etc. Mark my words. A Chinese or Korean scientist will develop and rear the first human-animal hybrid creature. Already, the Chinese created a human-rabbit-hybrid embryo but destroyed it after a few days.
This is the type of situation that the ethical guideline was established to prevent. The director would have realized that his subordinants would have delivered the eggs and should have taken stronger measures to prevent this from happening.
What, exactly, should he have done? According to the article, the subordinates went and gave false identities in order to donate! How is he supposed to prevent that?
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
You can't make an omelet without...
breaking some... rules(?) about eggs...
or something.
The pressures to get data are enormous.
Donating eggs has some serious risks. The rules preventing researchers from donating to their own research are there to prevent these young women from being pressured into taking a risk to their own health by over-zealous advisors or simply the pressure to finish their next paper.
Send a written message (memo, email, whatever) to everyone working on the experiment that 'If you donate eggs or otherwise participate in the experiment as a subject, you will be fired. But what's worse, the integrity of the experiment will be compromised, and you will have brought shame and disgrace upon us all.'
But even without that, the principal investigator is still responsible for what goes on in the experiment. Suppose that you are a psychology professor conducting an experiment and, unknown to you, one of your grad students has been abusing the (human) subjects. Then the fault primarily lies with the grad student -- but you, the overseer and designer of the experiment, also deserve a significant amount of blame.
In Soviet Russia clone donates you.
Some enterprising United States biotech company or University biotech/science deparment will hire the guy and he won't even have to remotely pressure women to donate. They'll do it for money.
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
facts:
1) some of the eggs used in his research were from his staff.
2) he is resigning from all his public posts because of this.
3) he will retain his position at Seoul National University and continue doing stem cell research.
4) when these ethical breaches occured, no laws were in place yet (they were established this year AFAIK).
5) he lied about not using ova from his staff when he was asked about it this year.
the rest is speculation.
whether he coerced his staff or it was truly voluntary is an issue we'll never truly know.
whether he was lying to protect himself or his staff is a something we'll never truly know.
but i'm sure that won't stop some from making sweeping statements about the character of Dr Hwang.
and for the interest of full disclosure, i am korean and am currently residing in korea, so the "facts" i have posted here are from the local media here.
btw, regarding those who ask "how could he not know about the ova being donated", this is what Dr Hwang said:
"I am not a doctor, which means I cannot participate in the extraction process. I did not have any information on ova except for its serial number."
whether you believe him or not is up to you of course.
-joseph
So he's being forced to resign for trying not to get his assistants in trouble? That's hardly unethical. In the very least, it's rational. Why aren't the assistants being punished? What they did was definately worse than what he did... Some countries are so strange.
I think the most important aspect of this situation is that this man is now almost assuredly going to become a supervillain. At best he will be a mere "mad scientist", but let's think about it. He is the first man to ever clone human cells. He has been shunned by his peers. He has been publicly humiliated! Am I alone in thinking he is a potential threat to the world now? Revenge will most likely be the first thing on his mind.