(In response to "Egg Ethics Spark Stem-Cell Rift")

So, one of South Korea's most beloved scientists is shunned by a leading American stem cell scientist. Gerald Schatten ended a 20-month long collaboration with Hwang Woo-suk due to Hwang's use of "unethical practices". In 2003, Schatten toured Dr. Hwang's South Korean laboratory, and it was at this visit that Dr. Hwang pulled Schatten aside to tell him that some of his lab workers extracted stem cells from a successfully cloned human embryo. Schatten then assisted Dr. Hwang and his group of scientists in publishing the breakthrough information (with the breakthrough information being the success of cloning a human embryo from a human egg and then extracting stem cell from the cloned human embryo) and announced the collaboration to help Dr. Hwang's World Stem Cell Hub in collecting eggs. The next thing you know, Schatten calls the whole thing off.

Making human embryonic cells isn't an easy task. Because the odds against successfully cloning a single embryo are enormous, Dr. Hwang and Schatten's work required a large amount of human eggs to make a large amount of embryos. The women donating the eggs were to give their full consent to take the increasing egg production hormones as well as to have the eggs surgically removed from their ovaries. Schatten pulled out of the collaboration because information led him to believe that Dr. Hwang obtained some of the eggs from one of his subordinates as well as paid several women for their donations. The ethical dilemma tied to these accusations is coercion. Was the junior lab worker coerced into donating her eggs to the research? Dr. Hwang said he attempted to talk the junior scientists out of donating the eggs to the research after being confronted by them. He also insisted that the eggs be donated by enthusiastic volunteers. At the time of the donations, payment for the eggs were not illegal, but since then, South Korea has enacted a law banning the commercial trading of human embryos.

The U.S. administration has previously denounced the idea of cloning human embryos for research, but in a 2001 speech (Remarks by the President on Stem Cell Research), President Bush supported stem-cell research for medical purposes like conquering leukemia and other diseases. The majority of Americans support embryonic stem-cell research (as do I) most likely because the majority of Americans are affected by diseases that can possibly be cured via results from the research. Even with this acceptance, U.S. stem-cell research is still lacking in funds. Dr. Hwang's labs receive more financial support than the U.S. government has invested in all of our nation's stem-cell labs put together. It is this reason that some of our best stem-cell researchers, including Schatten, go overseas to find research funds. A properly funded stem-cell research program, with regulations and all, could guarantee oversight and the protection of all those involved from the researchers to the donators.

For more information on U.S. stem-cell research visit The Center for Genetics and Society.