Marlowe's Shade

Monday, November 14, 2005

South Korean Cloners Already Stumbling on Ethical Issues

Wesley J Smith reports in his blog Secondhand Smoke that that an American researcher has quit over violations of the generally accepted ethical guidelines:

When S. Korean researcher Woo-Suk Hwang successfully cloned the first human cloned embryos, there were rumors that women on his research team had been coerced to "donate" their eggs (which requires an onerous medical procedure), or that other irregularities had occurred. Hwang denied it. But now, an American researcher, who had agreed to team with Hwang, has quit, citing inappropriate conduct by Hwang surrounding the human egg issue. (The researcher also stated that there were technical errors in the earlier cloning report. We will have to wait and see what those were.)

The orginal report hints that this may give pause to potential US collaborators who were formerly tripping over themselves to jump on Dr Hwang's bandwagon:

"The National Academy of Sciences guidelines for stem cell research prohibits payment to egg donors, and scientists in the U.S. have embraced those principles," said George Daley, a researcher at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and at Children's Hospital Boston, who is scheduled to visit Hwang in Seoul later this month to look into setting up a collaboration. "There is a right way and a wrong way, and we must be sure to perform this vitally important medical research the right way."

I can't improve on Wesley Smiths closing comment:

Human cloning leads to dehumanization: Of the clone, of women, and of our ethical values.

In other words, there is no right way...
papijoe 7:52 AM
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