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."
But what exactly was unethical about lab workers also being donors in the first place?
~Rebecca
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...
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.
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) ?
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.
It's always the coverup that gets you, not the original crime. Martha Stewart, Richard Nixon...
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
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.
That is the whole problem. Assume that the researcher forced the assistant to give eggs. Obviously, that is wrong.
But the story changed to be, that the assistant donated eggs and researcher tried to cover up. Cover-up what? That an assistant lied, or that he forced the assistant? Problem is, that now there are multi stories and impossible to know which is the truth.
In science and education, veracity is everything.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If I may tangent slightly on the topic, your underlying perception that if there's only one story it must be the truth disturbs me greatly.
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).
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.
What's so unethical about it? It's not like human life is precious or anything. It is THE cheapest thing on planet Earth.
Cloning is not so much unethical as completely useless. Nature developed sexual reproduction as a superior alternative to cloning billions of years ago, but some scientist wants to turn back the clock so he can run the media circuit or something. Big TIME magazine cover in lab jacket with crossed arms and something about God's domain or some such rubbish. Meanwhile the misfortunate subject gets X years wiped off their lifespan by default that to this bozos incompetance.
And all on the taxpayers money
May the Maths Be with you!
Not even the usual "medical ethics boards", that too often seem to be wholly staffed by "Leave well enough alone" people and ardent Christians, agree on this matter.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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.
They are just cells. Who gives a crap?
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.
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.
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.