News from Korea about the work of disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk becomes more confusing by the day. Only one thing is constant: today's news is worse than yesterday's. Hwang has finally resigned from the Seoul National University, while still insisting in a South Korean Buddhist newspaper that "I definitely have the source technology to produce tailored embryonic stem cells. I can replicate the process any time."
An article published in the leading journal Science in June by Hwang and 24 co-authors described the creation of 11 patient- specific embryonic stem cell lines from cloned human embryos. This data now appears to be fabricated. A university committee has done extensive DNA tests and found that none of the stem cells came from clones. Instead they came from IVF embryos. Hwang acknowledges that 9 of the 11 did not exist, but accuses scientists at Seoul's Mizmedi Hospital of switching the other two.
The latest allegation to surface as a result of investigations by journalists at the TV program PD Notebook revisits the issue of informed consent. Hwang's elaborate charade began to crumble in November when he was accused of obtaining eggs unethically. He acknowledged at the time that there had been some irregularities, but said that he had not been involved. Now a junior researcher says that he actually forced her to donate eggs. Park Eul-soon, a woman in her mid-20s, has told Korea media that in 2003 she accidentally spilled eggs to be used in Hwang's experiments. Hwang then insisted that she donate her own.
Hwang may also have lied about the number of eggs he used. His team claimed that it used 242 eggs for its 2004 paper and 185 eggs for its 2005 paper. Now a university committee has found that the real number of eggs used may have been about 2,000.
Bribery by Hwang has also been alleged by the Chosun Ilbo. The newspaper says that two of Hwang's close associates travelled to Pittsburgh in December and spoke with a whistleblower former colleague, Kim Seon-jong. Under aggressive questioning, Kim confessed to Korean TV journalists that he had fabricated data for Hwang. But after meeting the two scientists he altered his story to put Hwang in a better light. Now it appears that he had been given US$30,000 -- purportedly as compensation for the mental stress of the TV interview. Kim returned the funds to SNU when he returned to Korea.
The Korean government, which in June named Hwang "supreme scientist" and has subsidised his work, is now feeling the heat over what the local media terms "Hwang-gate". One of the co-authors of the 2004 paper was Dr Park Ky Young, the Korean president's science adviser. The government was told about the possibility of fraud in November, but in early December science minister Oh Myung called for an end to the controversy "for the sake of Korean science". ~ Chosun Ilbo, Dec 27; New York Times, Dec 29; Korea Herald, Jan 3
SCIENTISTS' CONFIDENCE IN THERAPEUTIC CLONING UNSHAKEN
Despite the debacle in Korea, stem cell scientists and supportive bioethicists and journalists are confident that therapeutic cloning will succeed. At least three research groups in the US and UK are planning to make their own human embryonic stem cell lines from cloned embryos even though the road ahead will be unexpectedly more difficult now that Hwang's research has been discredited. The co- director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Douglas Melton, commented: "This sad news from Korea in no way weakens our belief in all the demonstrably valid experiments indicating that stem cell science holds the promise of eventually providing the basis of treatments and cures for numerous presently intractable chronic diseases... It simply means that we still need to take important steps we thought had already been taken."
Laurie Zoloth, a prominent bioethicist from Northwestern University, said that the incident was a reminder that a high standard of truthfulness in science is always needed, but that the core idea of therapeutic cloning was "not a fantasy... not a fraud".
And Professor Ian Wilmut, the Scottish scientist who made cloning a reality by creating Dolly the sheep, is neither wringing his hands nor sitting on them while his colleagues fret about the future of stem cell science. He has called for a relaxation of ethical safeguards so that he can test embryonic stem cells on terminally ill patients. Normally scientists would be required to do animal trials of potential therapies first, especially since the use of embryonic stem cells is clearly hazardous at the moment. But Professor Wilmut says the need is too urgent. "If we wait until things are totally tested and analysed in animals, it will deny some people that treatment," he told the Scotsman newspaper. He knows of patients who are "only too keen" to participate in trials. ~ Nature, Dec 23; Boston Globe, Dec 24; Age, Dec 29; Scotsman, Dec 27
CRITICS CALL FOR TIME OUT TO REFLECT
Of course, not all observers tried to put a good face on the Korean scandal. The chief editorial writer for The Independent in the UK, Mary Dejevsky, welcomed the news as an opportunity to take "a long second look... at this whole area of science". She fears a return of eugenics when scientists eventually master the technology for therapeutic cloning.
Until now, the stem-cell pioneers and gene-therapy proponents have been extraordinarily successful in ignoring all links between their research and the earth 20th century pursuit of eugenics," she writes. "If you want to split hairs, you could say that the quest then was to improve the human race, whereas now it is to improve each individual, one by one. But the implications are surely the same: the exclusion, demonising or destruction of those who do not, or cannot be made to, fit."
And bioethics writer Wesley J. Smith, writing in the Weekly Standard, called for a review of "how science's core values of integrity and objectivity are being corroded by the passionate political pursuit of a legal license to clone." ~ Independent, Jan 1; Weekly Standard, Jan 2
AUSTRALIAN SCIENTISTS LOBBY FOR CLONING
Stem cells are also at the top of the bioethics agenda in Australia at the moment. A government report, the Lockhart Review, has recommended that therapeutic cloning and other research techniques be legalised. Stem cell scientists are jumping in to defend it.
Professor Alan Trounson, one of the world's leading researchers in the field, argued in a newspaper column that embryonic stem cells will be very useful in research and drug testing. He contends that cloned embryos are "not embryos in the usual understanding of the term" because they are not formed by the union of egg and sperm and because they will not be implanted in a womb.
The head of the Australian Stem Cell Centre, Dr Hugh Niall, praised the Review's analysis of three major objections to cloning embryos in The Age. The first, the slippery slope argument that cloning embryos leads to cloning full-term babies is dismissed because reproductive cloning will be against the law and therefore impossible. The second, that the embryo is a human being, is dismissed because an embryo only has as much moral significance as its creators deem it to have. The third, that embryos should not be created in order to be destroyed, is dismissed because IVF embryos are already being destroyed in great quantities and it would be inconsistent not to accept the destruction of cloned embryos. ~ Herald Sun, Dec 23; Age, Dec 21
SMILE FOR THE PATIENTS, DOCTOR!
A smile makes up for doctors' lack of dress sense, a New Zealand study has found. Most patients prefer smiling doctors in semi-formal attire to po-faced doctors in the same garb. The next most popular options are white coat, formal suit, jeans and casual dress. Patients tended to be more comfortable, researchers found, with relatively conservative styles, such as long sleeves, covered shoes and dress trousers and skirts. Facial piercings, short tops and men wearing earrings are not popular.
As for forms of address, the New Zealand study found that most patients prefer to be addressed by their first name -- although New Zealanders are not known for their formality in any case. But they do want doctors to introduce themselves by their title and first and last names. The breast pocket was the most favoured location for a name badge. ~ BMJ.com, Dec 24
CHINESE PRISONERS IN ORGAN MARKET
The British press has again reported that the Chinese military is profiting from the sale of organs of executed prisoners. A reporter for the London Telegraph posing as an entrepreneur discovered that transplant operations for foreigners are carried out at military hospitals. With their close links to the police, these hospitals can ensure good tissue matches for the patients. The government maintains that all prisoners have agreed to the donation and that in some cases their relatives are compensated.
Although no British patients have yet taken advantage of the service, the Telegraph says, Western patients would be charged about US$40,000 for a kidney transplant, with $12,000 to $15,000 going to a middleman. Asian patients pay about half this figure, but Westerners get VIP treatment. ~ London Telegraph, Dec 16
US MEDICAL SCHOOL EMBROILED IN CORRUPTION SCANDAL
In a scenario more familiar on Wall Street than in American universities, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey has become the first educational institution in the US to make a deal to avoid criminal prosecution. The trustees of the university have accepted an administrator who will oversee its expenses and management for at least two years in an effort to clean up "gross mismanagement" and "illegal conduct". Apart from allegations of conflict of interest, donations to political candidates, excessive bonuses for executives, and no-bid contracts, prosecutors say that the university deliberately over billed Medicaid by tens of millions of dollars. ~ Star-Ledger, Dec 30
BIOEDGE IN THE MEDIA
"Parliament's last chance to preserve human dignity"
by Michael Cook, Australian, 22 December 2005
"In Nitschke's Hands"
by Michael Cook, Arena: The Australian Magazine of Left Political, Social and Cultural Commentary, December-January 2005-06
