The Oregon law became effective in 1997 and is supported by the electorate. The most recent statistics show that 326 patients had received medications to help them end their lives and 208 had actually killed themselves.
The legitimacy of physician-assisted suicide "ultimately rests, not on 'science' or 'medicine,' but on a naked value judgment," he wrote. ~ New York Times, Jan 17
Investigators have confirmed that stunning advances in embryonic stem cell research by a team of South Korean researchers were fraudulent. Stem cell researchers around the world were dismayed. "This has set us back several years," said Chris Shaw, a neurologist at King's College London who has a UK licence to clone human embryos. "It was as if Dr Hwang had sent us a picture of him on top of Everest, but it happened not to be Everest. He lied to us about that and Everest is still there to climb."
Hwang Woo-suk's work has not been thoroughly discredited. Investigators from Seoul National University found that he had indeed cloned a dog, as he reported in a paper in Nature last year. However, much of the data which he used to support claims that he had cloned human embryos and produced stem cell lines was fabricated. False, too, was his claim to have used only 427 human eggs. In fact, he used 2,061 eggs and failed to produced a single stem cell line. And false were his assurances that he knew nothing about his junior staff donating eggs for research. In fact, he pressured some into doing so. The debacle has been called the biggest scientific fraud in living memory.
Bouncing back: After a few days, however, it became clear that the fraud had not dented scientists' enthusiasm for research on human embryos. In a typical response, the Institute for Stem Cell Research at Edinburgh University said: "These revelations about Dr Hwang do not invalidate the body of rigorous scientific evidence supporting the potential of a range of human cells, including embryonic stem cells, to provide medical benefit." And David Shaywitz, of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, commented, "If the current controversy were to cause us to precipitously abandon this exciting area, it would be a catastrophic shame."
Hype: However, even Dr Shaywitz was forced to acknowledge that stem cell hype was part of the reason why Hwang's work had been so warmly received by his colleagues. Writing in the Washington Post, he explained that "As the demand for results far outstripped the ability of researchers to supply them, a seller's market emerged in which goods were overvalued and even low-quality merchandise was snatched up by eager buyers. This is the context in which Hwang's studies appeared. While most in the field of stem cell research were shocked by the reports of fraud, the shock was only one of degree; it is common knowledge that the bar for publication in this field often has appeared remarkably low, with even well-respected research journals seeming to fall over one another for the privilege of publishing the next hot paper. The result of this frenzy has been an entire body of literature that is viewed with extreme scepticism by most serious stem cell investigators."
Research ethics: An editorial in Nature pointed out that scientists are entering a new era of research ethics, a time "in which scientists may aspire not just to fame, but to fortune as well". In the fiercely competitive field of reproductive biology, international collaborations with countries with relatively primitive ethical standards are becoming more common. It urged scientists to "redouble" their efforts to promote high standards.
Economic consequences: Hwang's downfall also hamstrings South Korea's hope of tapping into a biotechnology boom whose leading products would be based on human embryonic stem cells. Korea's state-run Science & Technology Institute had estimated that the global stem cell industry will be worth about US$33 billion by the year 2015 -- of which Korea would have one tenth. At the moment, the governments of seven countries -- South Korea, Australia, China, Israel, Singapore and Sweden and the UK -- are spending at least US$18 million, and up to $160 million, on stem cell research.
In the wake of the disaster, critics are blaming the Korean government for its unrealistic expectations. "What he delivered certainly looked exciting for the political establishment in Korea," says Robert Triendl, of the Riken Research Center for Allergy and Immunology in Japan. "So, step by step, they put him in an ever more powerful position, without really understanding what his work was about."
Critical appreciation: Critics of the controversial research on embryos have had a field day. British philosopher David Oderberg, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, called for an end to California's US$3 billion stem cell institute: "Were a bishop to be caught doctoring the Gospels, I doubt any scientists would be rushing to approve the Church's latest request for help to build a new cathedral. Why it should be any different for the secular bishops of science is difficult to discern." Whether the Hwang debacle will derail government funding of embryonic stem cell research is difficult to say. On the very day that the Hwang fraud was confirmed, the governor of Iowa called for a ban on therapeutic cloning in his state to be revoked. "We should... allow life-saving treatments to be administered to Iowans here in Iowa rather than forcing them to leave our state," he said.
Career move: Although he has made a tearful apology for his actions, Hwang could now face fraud and embezzlement charges. He still insists that he was betrayed by colleagues, several of whom are also being investigated by Korean authorities. If he escapes jail, Hwang is still eminently employable. The Raelians, the cult which believes that mankind was created by aliens and pursues immortality through cloning, have offered him a job in a secret research facility. ~ Guardian, Jan 11; Washington Post, Jan 12, Guardian, Jan 10; Nature, Jan 12; Bloomberg, Jan 13; New York Times, Jan 11
UK CLONING RESEARCH TEAM SPLITS UP
The only other research team to have successfully cloned human embryos has quarrelled and split up in a dispute about unprofessional self-promotion. Two professors at the University of Newcastle, Professor Miodrag Stojkovic, a stem cell biologist, and Professor Alison Murdoch, an IVF specialist who is head of the British Fertility Society, have fallen out over her orchestration of the announcement of their breakthrough research last May. She ensured that it would coincide with the day that Hwang's paper was published.
The Newcastle team's announcement was criticised at the time by the journal Nature as "contrary to good scientific practice". It had breached convention by publicising results before its research had been peer-reviewed and published in full in a scientific journal. An incensed Professor Stojkovic claims that he had not agreed to this plan.
Professor Stojkovic also claimed that he deserved the lion's share of the credit for their research. "There are plenty of people dissatisfied with Professor Murdoch taking the publicity," he said. The laboratory scientists do not need someone who has been doing nothing in the laboratory and who knows nothing about the work to represent them." Stojkovic has now moved to a research institute in Valencia, Spain. ~ London Times, Jan 15
USE RABBIT EGGS, SAYS BRITISH STEM CELL EXPERT
After Professor Hwang failed to derive embryonic stem cell lines from more than 2000 human eggs, it is obvious that cloning human embryos will not be achieved easily. If it is to happen, an enormous quantity of hard-to-obtain eggs will be needed. British scientists, therefore, are calling for the creation of hybrid embryos made by inserting human genetic material into rabbit eggs. "We have to think about alternative sources of eggs," says Professor Chris Shaw, of King's College London. "The fertility of rabbits is legendary. There may be opportunities to use human cells for nuclear transfer to rabbit oocytes (eggs). Legally the position is not clear, but that's something we'd like to discuss with the HFEA (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority)."
Although Chinese researchers claim to have created hundreds of these hybrid embryos back in 2003, in no country has this procedure actually been legalised (although a government committee recently proposed it in Australia). "I think it is right to feel uncomfortable about creating some type of hybrid," commented Josephine Quintavalle, of the lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics. "The question is what would be created?' And I have suspicions of how useful it would really be for research." ~ BBC, Jan 12; CNN.com, Jan 13
CLONING BAN UNCONSTITUTIONAL, SAYS CALIFORNIA ACADEMIC
Although nearly everyone in favour of therapeutic cloning swears that reproductive cloning is unethical and unsafe, very few are able to explain exactly why it is unethical. Now an American law professor argues vigorously in a new book that cloning should be legalised. Kerry Lynn Macintosh, of Santa Clara University, in California, says that a ban violates the US constitution and that fear of cloning is irrational. The most quoted bioethicist in the US, Arthur Caplan, praises Illegal Beings: Human Clones and the Law as "a courageous and important book".
If a ban is such a mistake, Caplan asks how cloning could have become "one of the most widely outlawed activities on the planet". He identifies abortion politics as the answer. Outlawing cloning, he says, is a backdoor way for pro-life activists to push for granting human embryos full legal rights from the moment of conception. ~ Nature Biotechnology, January
CHINESE EMBRACE COSMETIC SURGERY
As the economy becomes more competitive and personal income rises, more and more Chinese are taking up cosmetic surgery. In a marked change from the puritanical days of Maoism. Chinese TV is even screening its own extreme makeover show, "Lovely Cinderella", in which 14 contestants compete for US$6,000 in cash and trip to Hawaii. According to Xinhua news agency, there are now 1 million plastic surgery clinics which employ 6 million people. Plastic surgery is a US$3 billion industry.
As people become richer, they start to strive for more beyond the basic needs of filling their stomachs and looking for a roof over their heads," says plastic surgeon Zhang Wei, in Shanghai. "Now people will proudly admit they had done plastic surgery as it's perceived as a sign of affluence and sophistication."
But lack of regulation is a problem. According to the China Consumers Association, there are about 20,000 complaints each year about botched surgery. "Chinese doctors tend to learn on the job," explains a spokeswoman for the Chinese Medical Doctor Association. The skill shortage has led to a demand for skilled Korean doctors. ~ Bloomberg.com, Jan 13
IN BRIEF: Spain; France; Congo; tissue theft racket
A Spanish stem cell researcher has come under fire for developing human embryonic stem cells without proper consent from patients. Carlos Simón, of the Valencian Infertility Institute, created two stem cell lines from IVF embryos and claims to have differentiated them into cells resembling the pancreas, heart and brain. However the Spanish health ministry alleges that he did the research without proper authorisation. Simón says that his work has become a political football, with the provincial government supporting it and the central government denouncing it as a violation of current laws. ~ Nature Medicine, December
The French woman who received the world's first face transplant has taken strolls in public without comment from passers- by. Her surgeon told a newspaper that Isabelle is taking walks, riding a bike, chatting and eating. ~ AP, Jan 1
About four million people have died in the war-torn Congo between 1998 and 2004 as a result of fighting and a collapse in public health, according to a study published in The Lancet. About 38,000 people are dying each month, mostly from easily treatable conditions like diarrhoea and respiratory infections. The Congo's minister for information dismissed the analysis, which was based on a statistical analysis of a survey of 19,500 households, as "a big lie". ~ AP, Jan 6
The bones of Alistair Cooke, the British broadcaster and author, were stolen days after he died and sold to provide tissue for transplant operations. Cooke died of cancer at the age of 95 last year. But paperwork was altered to state that the bones came from an 85-year-old who had died of a heart attack. This is a rare window on a criminal racket which dismembers and steals corpses for their body parts. These are then sold to tissue banks, which in turn sell them to medical schools, researchers, hospitals and testing facilities. ~ London Times, Dec 22
ABI IN THE MEDIA
"Back to taws on ethics"
By Michael Cook. The Australian. 13 January 2006
The US Supreme Court has upheld Oregon's controversial assisted suicide law and declared that the Bush administration exceeded its authority in trying to undo the statute. In a 6-3 decision, the Court held that the Federal Attorney-General did not have the power to declare illegal "a medical standard for care and treatment of patients that is specifically authorized under state law".