Hwang has been accused by his American research partner, Gerald Schatten, of the University of Pittsburgh, of obtaining eggs improperly and then covering up with persistent lies. The South Korean president's science and technology adviser, Ky Young Park, has already promised an investigation. But Nature scoffs at her offer. A bioethics consultant and a co-author of Hwang's paper, she told Nature that she had not previously considered the ethics of egg donation. "Stem-cell researchers will now find themselves on the defensive in proving that they are ready to stick to strict ethical codes," says Nature with alarm.
The World Stem Cell Hub, an international network of fertility clinics recently established by Hwang to create stem cell lines for research, is already unravelling. Pacific Fertility Centre, an IVF clinic in San Francisco, has announced that it will be pulling out. ~ Nature, Nov 17
Without a single exception, responsible stem sell scientists are outspoken foes of reproductive cloning. Nearly every plea for the legalisation of therapeutic cloning or for government funding ends with a sentence insisting that reproductive cloning must be banned because it is unsafe.
Many bioethicists, however, take a longer term view and foresee a day when cloning will no longer be unsafe. In that case, they contend, it ought to be treated as a human right. The latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics contains the most recent argument.
Cloning combined with certain types of genetic modification can be ethically justifiable when carried out by infertile, lesbian, or gay couples as a means to have children with a genetic relationship to both members of the couple," argues Professor Carson Strong, a bioethicist at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. He stresses, however, that access to cloning should not be limited to these cases.
He identifies lack of uniqueness as the principal argument against cloning. This difficulty could be overcome by adding and deleting genes in the clone, making it unique and giving it "a nuclear DNA relationship to both members of an infertile couple".
The principal reason on which Prof Strong grounds his defence of reproductive cloning is reproductive freedom, provided, of course, that there is no danger of birth defects. Although some writers have argued that cloning is contrary to human dignity, Prof Carson has described this elsewhere as a nearly meaningless concept. "There are serious problems in specifying what the essence of a human is and in achieving a consensus on this matter," he wrote in another journal earlier this year. ~ Journal of Medical Ethics, Nov; Reproductive Biomedicine Online, March
SWISS SUICIDE GROUP UNDER INVESTIGATION
The Swiss assisted suicide group Dignitas is being investigated after a healthy 69-year-old German woman killed herself with its help. The woman, who has not been named for legal reasons, approached Dignitas with a fake medical report saying that she had terminal cirrhosis of the liver. But a routine autopsy by authorities when her body was returned to Germany revealed that this was false. It turned out that her doctor in Augsberg had given her a false medical certificate as a way of helping her to get sick leave from work.
Another casualty was the Swiss doctor who provided the woman with a lethal dose of barbiturates. When he learned that she had not been terminally ill, he committed suicide. Nonetheless, the head of Dignitas, Ludwig Minelli, defended the work of his organisation. "The doctor's report that I was given indicated the woman was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver as well as hepatitis," he said. "And in any case every person in Europe has the right to choose to die, even if they are not terminally ill." ~ BMJ.com, Nov 19
INCONCEIVABLE STORIES
One of the casualties of this season's American TV is Inconceivable, an NBC series about life in a fertility clinic. It ran only long enough for the critics to give it a big raspberry. This was a pity, because the dramas initiated in IVF clinics have enough permutations to keep a soap opera in business for years. Perhaps viewers had already seen enough in real life. Here are a few developments which surfaced recently:
An 8 pound, 7 ounce baby boy was born late in October to three English sisters. Mrs Alex Patrick became infertile after chemotherapy for cervical cancer, so her 32-year-old twin sister offered eggs and her 35-year-old sister became the surrogate mother. Alex's husband provided the sperm. It is thought to be the first time in Britain for three sisters to be involved in a surrogate birth. ~ Guardian, Oct 25
A British scientist is working on creating sperm and eggs from embryonic stem cells. The artificial gametes could be useful for infertile couples. They could also be used by gay and lesbian couples so that they would not have to rely upon egg and sperm donors. The technique should be mastered in the next decade, according to the Observer. ~ Observer (UK), Nov 13
CHILDREN OF DONOR DADS SEARCH FOR THEIR SIBLINGS
American children conceived with donor sperm are seeking their biological father through an internet website and finding half- siblings by the dozen. Using the Donor Siblings Registry, a web site founded by Wendy Kramer and her 15-year-old donor-conceived son, some teenagers and their mothers are holding family "reunions" -- nearly always without Dad, who is just a number on a vial of sperm along with fragments of personal information. "They are building a new definition of family that both rests on biology and transcends it," comments the New York Times.
Sperm bank officials estimate that 30,000 children are born each year from donor sperm, but no one knows how many there really are because the industry is unregulated. "As half-siblings find one another, it is becoming clear that the banks do not know how many children are born to each donor, and where they are. Popular donors may have several dozen children and critics say there is a risk of unwitting incest between half-siblings," says the Times. ~ New York Times, Nov 20
INDIAN CLINIC OFFERS CURES WITH EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS
Western scientists have called upon the Indian government to investigate a Delhi doctor who is treating patients with human embryonic stem cells. Dr Geeta Shroff, who runs a genetic research laboratory, is using the cells to treat conditions ranging from spinal cord injury to motor neuron disease to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. "My patients often have no other choice. I am their last chance," Dr Shroff told the Guardian.
Dr Shroff and her clinic, Nu Tech Mediworld, appear to have the informal support of the government. A recent conference announcing the cures was attended by a former Chief Minister of the state of Chattisgarh, whose paralysis had been cured with the technique, and the wife of the Indian Prime Minister. Dr Shroff said that all ethical guidelines set down by the Indian government had been followed and dismissed the need for animal studies. The Indian Health Secretary, Mr Prasanna Hota, has reservations about her work, but he also attended the function.
This the boldest claim yet by maverick scientists around the world who claim to be using stem cells to alleviate or cure the conditions of their patients. UK stem cell expert Dr Stephen Minger denounced Dr Shroff's work as quackery. "It is highly implausible and frankly downright dangerous. If the Indian government wants to promote stem cell research, then it needs to seriously look at regulation of these doctors and if necessary close them down."
British scientists have raised a number of ethical issues about Dr Shroff's work. High on the list is the danger that tumours will grow from undifferentiated embryonic stem cells. Nu Tech MediWorld does not share these concerns. Its ethics committee bypassed the Indian Council of Medical Research on the grounds that suffering patients could not wait for government approvals. ~ Guardian, Nov 18; WebIndia123.com, Nov 18
Health tourists are helping to destabilise India's health system, Indian doctors have claimed in the British Medical Journal. India, they say, is one of the top 20 countries in the world in terms of its spending for private healthcare, but still has one of the lowest levels of spending on public healthcare. More and more patients from the Middle East, Africa, and the subcontinent are visiting top clinics for complex operations unavailable in their own countries. Patients are also coming from the UK, Europe and the US for quick, efficient and cheap operations with a bit of tourism thrown in as well. ~ BBC, Nov 18
BARGAIN BASEMENT COSMETIC SURGERY
An Australian cosmetic surgeon has horrified his colleagues by offering plastic surgery in an online auction. Melbourne doctor Mateen Jabbar has offered 17 separate lots of cosmetic surgery to the highest bidder, including a A$10,000 full facelift, 2 $6,500 breast enlargements, and 4 $4,000 liposuction procedures. The auction closes next week.
The president of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons, Dr Bill Cockburn, criticised the move. "We take a dim view to that sort of medical auction as an unethical practice," he said. "Apart from trivialising what is an invasive procedure it also allows people to select what they think they require." Dr Jabbar defended himself and said that any patient who won the auction would still have to go through the same examinations and processes. ~ Melbourne Herald-Sun, Nov 18
IN BRIEF: China; India; Joffe bill; stem cells
Although China's top population official, Zhang Weiqing, has acknowledged that his country's sex ration "has not been checked effectively", he insists that the current one-child policy should remain in effect. To lower the ratio of boys to girls, which is as high as 130 to 100 in the southern provinces of Hainan and Guangdong, the government plans to outlaw sex-selective abortions, launch a modest pension plan for parents with no sons, and to step up a public education campaign that "girls are as good as boys". ~ Reuters, Nov 15
After years of sex-selective abortions and infanticide, the Indian sex ratio has become so skewed in favour of men that trafficking of women has become a big problem. A human rights group says that trafficked women are being bought for as little as £50 to 60. It claims that about 8000 women have been sold in Faridabad, a district in northern India of 2 million people. Initially sold as wives, many are then resold into sex work or as slaves; each resale lowering their price. ~ Sunday Herald (Scotland), Nov 20
A new version of the Joffe bill to legalise assisted suicide has been given an unopposed first reading in the British House of Lords. The changes to the first draft are modelled on Oregon's experience with assisted suicide. "A law which requires the patient to take the final act... seems to reassure doctors that the patient is exercising a choice and is less difficult to them on a personal level," says Lord Joffe. There is little chance of the bill being passed, but it has created an enormous controversy in Britain. ~ BMJ.com, Nov 19
Two kidney dialysis patients from Argentina have received the world's first blood vessels grown in a laboratory from adult stem cells. The advance was made by a small California biotech company, Cytograft Tissue Engineering. ~ New York Times, Nov 15
The world's leading scientific journal, Nature, has demanded a Korean government investigation of claims that its world-beating stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk obtained human eggs unethically. Earlier this year Hwang published an article in Science about the creation of the first human embryonic stem cell lines from research clones. A thorough investigation is nonetheless required, not just for the sake of scientific integrity in South Korea, but to help persuade sceptics worldwide that research on human embryonic stem cells is being done ethically," says Nature.