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Stem cell pioneer Prof. Hwang Woo-suk found support from a leading U.S.
law firm specializing in bioethics, which said recent allegations that
led to a rift with one of Hwang¡¯s closest collaborators would not
constitute a breach of ethics even if they were true. U.S. geneticist
Gerald Schatten pulled out of the stem cell project over allegations
that Hwang used the ova of a junior researcher. The team led by Hwang
announced the success of the project in 2004. According to insiders with the World Stem Cell Hub, John Qunn, a
California law firm specializing in issues of genetic engineering, and
others were commissioned to review the case and arrived at the
conclusion that if the occyte donation from the junior researcher was
truly voluntary, no criminal or ethical violation had occurred. The firms arrived at the opinion keeping in mind that the U.S.
did not have cut-and-dried ethical guidelines on the donation of egg
cells in stem cell research until the National Academy of Sciences
confirmed them in 2005. The new guidelines state that donors cannot be
coerced or paid. Thus if the junior researcher donated her ova before 2004 and
was neither coerced nor received financial benefits, there were no
ethical grounds for criticizing the donation. Hwang has said all eggs
were obtained through volunteer donation. Meanwhile, the British science journal Nature, which was the
first to take the issue with rumors that a junior researcher donated
her ova, told the Yonhap news agency Wednesday it had undertaken the
investigation to find out exactly what happened. (englishnews@chosun.com )
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