Only days after the world's leading embryonic stem cell researcher began receiving thousands of applications from sick patients who want him to make therapeutic clones with their genes, his project has sunk into a morass of scandal. Hwang Woo-suk became a world celebrity after creating the first human embryonic stem cell lines. Now he has been accused of lying and unethical practices by his American colleague.
For months, Hwang had repeatedly denied rumours that he had obtained eggs from a junior staff member, a serious ethical breach, and that the woman had received illegal payments for her eggs. Last week, Gerald P. Schatten, of the University of Pittsburgh, severed ties with the Korean researcher. "I have information that leadsme to believe he had misled me," Schatten told the Washington Post. "My trust has been shaken. I am sick at heart. I am not going to be able to collaborate with Woo-suk." Schatten's university is also pulling out of the World Stem Cell Foundation, Hwang's brainchild to provide hundreds of embryonic stem cell lines to world researchers. Schatten also said that there had been unintentional technical errors in the ground- breaking paper about therapeutic cloning which he and Hwang published earlier this year. He will give details later on.
Hwang told a press conference that he had followed all guidelines of the South Korean government and once again expressed his gratitude to "the blessed women who donated their ova for the research". A spokesman for him said "No egg was provided from research staff as far as I know." Hwang told reporters, "I will tell everything when the right time comes."
If Hwang has lied, the reputation of embryonic stem cell research could be damaged badly. In the words of US bioethicist Glenn McGee, Hwang, I fear, could firmly establish in the public mind the view that stem cell researchers as a group cannot be trusted, not only because they are in a hurry and miss things along the way, but because they may be willing to deceive their own peers and the public about their devotion to ethics." ~ Washington Post, Nov 12; Korea Times, Nov 14; blog.bioethics.net, Nov 13
KOREAN EGG BLACK MARKET
Hwang's research could even land one of his colleagues in jail. Dr Roh Sung-il, who runs an infertility clinic in Seoul and is a key member of Hwang's stem cell team, has admitted that he bought women's eggs. He is being questioned by police. There are suspicions, too, that Hwang's team may also have used purchased eggs. Dr Roh excused himself by appealing to a higher law: "I knew the eggs were traded unlawfully. But I could not turn a blind eye to couples who were suffering fron infertility," he told Korean media.
Meanwhile South Korean police have made their first arrest of a commercial egg broker and are investigating others. Under a new bioethics law passed in January, therapeutic cloning is legal, but commercial trading in eggs or sperm is banned. The man has been accused of recruiting women with massive credit card debts on the internet and then selling their eggs to infertile women in Korea and Japan. ~ Reuters, Nov 7; Korea Times, Nov 8
FINDING SPERM DONOR DADS ON THE INTERNET
An ingenious 15-year-old boy has proved that preserving sperm donor anonymity may be nearly impossible. The boy had been conceived with donor sperm and wanted to track down his father. He paid an on-line service, FamilyTreeDNA.com US$289 for his genetic profile. Using this, he found two men who had the same Y-chromosome and the same surname. Armed with the surname and his father's date and place of birth and college degree, he purchased the name of everyone who had been born in the same place on the same day. Only one had the same surname -- his father.
According to the New Scientist, this news "will be especially unsettling for men who donated anonymously before the power of genetics was fully appreciated. Donors were often college students who traded their sperm for beer money. Many have not told their wives or children and have never considered the implications of having a dozen offspring suddenly wanting to meet them." ~ New Scientist, Nov 3
PATIENTS DIE WHILE WAITING FOR LIVERS
Medical ethics includes competent management. This seems to be the lesson from a scandal exposed by the Los Angeles Times in which more than 30 people died while waiting for liver transplants. According to the newspaper, the University of California, Irvine Medical Center received 122 liver offers between August 2004 and July 2005, but transplanted only 12 of them because of a staffing shortage. The hospital had lacked a full time liver transplant surgeon since July 2004.
The hospital failed to meet minimum government requirements for patient survival and transplant numbers between 2002 and 2004. The doctor who founded the liver transplant program, Dr David Imagawa, recently returned to the hospital and says that changes are being made. ~ AP, Nov 10
AUSTRALIANS SUE OVER THEIR "WRONGFUL LIVES"
Two "wrongful life" cases are being studied by the High Court of Australia. One involves Alexia Harriton, a 24-year-old woman who is blind, deaf, spastic and mentally retarded after her mother contracted rubella during pregnancy. Olga Harriton, her mother, says that she would have aborted Alexia if she had been properly advised.
The other case involves a 5-year-old girl, Keeden Walker, who has permanent brain damage, cerebral palsy and seizures because of a genetic disorder passed on by her father. Her parents say that they would have used IVF with donor sperm or would have aborted her if they had known.
The two cases raise difficult issues of law. Recognising the notion of "wrongful life" might lead to a situation in which there is a duty to have an abortion, commented Chief Justice Murray Gleeson. As well, how can there be damages if there is no life before the negligence? Is there a potential conflict between the interests of the parents and the child? It will be some time before the High Court hands down its decision. ~ Sydney Morning Herald, Nov 11
CREATING KIDS FOR SEX SELECTION RESEARCH
A leading US medical school is to create children to study the social and personal impact of sex selection. Dr Sandra Carson, of Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, has launched a clinical trial in which a couple chooses the sex of their child and the investigators study its physical and psychological health. The trial is so controversial that Baylor's institutional review board dithered over it for nine years.
There are still a lot of questions in people's minds about whether this is something that should be pursued," says Robert Brzyski, a fertility specialist at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He told the journal Nature that he does not offer sex selection because he feels that children should be unconditionally loved, regardless of their sex.
Dr Carson is a former president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which currently opposes sex selection. She feels that her study will change her colleagues' policy. "Their statements are based on public opinion, not outcomes," she told an ASRM meeting in Montreal last month. "Public opinion is important, but it shouldn't be used to ban something."
Surveys of public opinion, in fact, show mixed results. A survey published earlier this year by a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago showed that 41% of infertile women would choose sex selection if it did not cost anything. However, the results from a British study released this month showed that 80% of people felt social sex selection was very wrong. The researcher was taken aback by the vehemence of the opinions expressed. ~ Nature, Oct 27; BBC, Nov 11
FRUSTRATION CAN LEAD SCIENTISTS INTO TEMPTATION
Thoroughness by institutional review boards can frustrate scientists so much that they will ignore guidelines, break rules and become deceitful, a social science researcher has found. According to Patricia Keith Spiegel, of Simmons College, in Boston, some researchers expect to have their plans rubberstamped by IRBs. When the review, however, takes too long, or results in demands for "picky" changes, some fall into scientific "misconduct". Dr Keith-Spiegel says that this is a well-documented phenomenon in other work environments. When workers feel that they are not being rewarded properly or are being treated unfairly, they are more likely to misbehave. ~ Nature, Nov 10
IVF GROWTH SLOWS IN US
Growth of the IVF industry may be slowing as the youngest baby boomers enter their 40s, according to a report in the Boston Globe. IVF babies account for about 1% of births in the US and as much as 4% in Denmark, but the overall market for IVF drugs may have dropped by 10% compared to last year. "Throughout the country there definitely is a little stagnation and many people are complaining that there is a slight decrease," says a doctor at Fertility Centers of New England. The trend even appears to be taking place in Europe.
Several reasons for the slowdown have been suggested. The number of 40-ish women is declining; IVF is becoming more efficient; and the cost of IVF cycles is driving potential customers away. ~ Boston Globe, Nov 14
IN BRIEF: hospices; embryo status; Vioxx; adult stem cells
November is National Hospice Month in the US. The Hospice Foundation of America has a number of publications about its work on its website, www.hospicefoundation.org.
An Arizona couple has lost a wrongful death lawsuit arising from their claim that the Mayo Clinic lost or destroyed their IVF embryos. The Arizona Court of Appeals said that an embryo kept outside the womb was not a person. According to a 20-year-old ruling a foetus must be able to exist outside the womb to sustain a wrongful death suit. However, the couple will be able to sue the clinic for loss of irreplaceable property, breach of fiduciary duty and failure to return property. ~ kaisernetwork. org, Nov 1
The score is now level at 1:1, after pharmaceutical giant Merck won a personal injury case arising out of its marketing of Vioxx in the US. A 60-year-old postal worker claimed that Vioxx had brought about his heart attack after using it for two months. A jury found that this was not true and that the company had properly marketed Vioxx. The first case had a very different outcome: Merck was ordered to pay US$253 million, including $229 in punitive damages. The company has another 6,400 lawsuits to deal with. ~ BMJ.com, Nov 14
A Florida State University research team has created a biomedical device which will allow adult stem cells derived from bone marrow to be grown in sufficient quantities to allow more research and faster growth of tissues. The scarcity of adult stem cells has always been one of their biggest drawbacks. ~Florida State University press release
