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A world-recognized figure with the status of a rock star,
heaped with honors and money by his government and even a stamp in his
honor. Leader of a world empire, with fawning colleagues. Fractured
international partnerships and hints of ethics violations. Admissions of
ethical breaches, of deceit, of paying women for their services, and stories
suggesting coercion of women subordinates. Adulating fans rushing to support
their idol, threatening violence against those who’ve besmirched his
character. A nation reeling, trying to save face, tempted to write its own
ethics code to maintain its hero.
Plot for the next Hollywood thriller? Novel of intrigue centering on a
renowned politician?
No. The true story of a scientist: Dr. Woo-suk Hwang, a leading
researcher in cloning technology from South Korea. Starting in 1999 with the
cloning of cows, Hwang became recognized leader on cloning and gained
international attention as the first to produce cloned human embryos. He
published his findings in 2004 and followed with a second publication in
2005 detailing how his laboratory produced cloned embryos from several
patients, and increased the efficiency of the human cloning process
ten-fold. In the summer of 2005, Hwang’s lab gained notoriety for being the
only one to succeed in cloning a dog.
Because of the achievements, the South Korean government has showered Hwang
with praise and money for his research, and scientists from around the world
have made pilgrimages to his lab to work with him. In the summer of 2005 he
announced that he was forming the World Stem Cell Hub, centered in South
Korea, to clone human embryos and provide embryonic stem cells to
researchers worldwide.
Cloning, a non-technical term for somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), is
accomplished by transferring the nucleus of a somatic cell (a body cell)
into an egg that has had its chromosomes removed. The process creates a new
one-celled embryo with the genetic constitution of the individual who
donated the somatic cell. In other words, the new embryo is a genetic clone
of the donor. The newly created embryo develops in the same manner as a
fertilized embryo, and potentially can be implanted into a womb and gestated
to birth (often termed “reproductive cloning”). But the reason Hwang and
others are working to perfect the technique is not to produce babies but to
harvest the embryonic stem cells inside the embryo.
About 7 days after conception, the embryo resembles a hollow ball with some
cells inside—embryonic stem cells. It is at this point that the embryo can
be destroyed to get its embryonic stem cells for experiments, what has been
termed “therapeutic cloning”. Obviously, though, it’s not therapeutic for
the embryo—which dies in the process. Theoretically these cells could match
the patient who was cloned though experiments with animals show otherwise.
There are, however, many scientific and ethical problems with cloning. One
key ethical issue is the fact that young embryos are destroyed in the
process; embryonic stem cell research destroys a young life itself, whether
the cells are taken from cloned or fertilized embryos. In the case of
cloning, new embryos are created specifically as experiments, and destroyed
in those experiments. Cloning thus creates a class of humans who exist only
as a means to achieve the ends of others, a caste system of lesser humans
for scientific sacrifice.
Some have argued that the ends justify the means, that the possibility of
producing cells to treat the diseases of millions justifies the sacrifice of
hundreds, thousands, or even millions of young human embryos. But this
attitude coarsens us, nurturing a view that some humans are expendable, and
cheapens all humanity. It is also still pie-in-the-sky, long on promise and
short on evidence that embryonic stem cells and cloning will deliver the
medical miracles that are often promised. In the meantime, thousands of
patients have already benefited from adult stem cell and umbilical cord
blood stem cell treatments (for a list of the diseases that cloning has
promised to treat see the scoreboard and lists at the website of
Do No Harm).
Another significant ethical and scientific problem with cloning is the
tremendous number of human eggs required to produce just one cloned human
embryo and harvest its cells. Cloning is an inefficient process. In Hwang’s
first report of human cloning, 242 human eggs were required to get just a
few surviving human embryos and one dish of cells. Even with his increased
cloning efficiency reported in 2005, at least 10-20 human eggs were needed
to get one human embryo and its embryonic stem cells. A simple math
calculation shows that, even if the cloning technique could be used for
patients, it would take an outrageous number of human eggs to treat all the
promised conditions—treating the 17 million diabetes patients in the U.S.
would require a minimum of 170-340 million human eggs, just for one
condition in one nation.
Where will all of the eggs come from, and the women to provide them? Will
women be paid to serve as egg factories on a global scale? The high hormone
dosages and invasive surgery required to harvest eggs put the women at risk
of health complications, including a 5% risk of life-threatening
side-effects. Will they be told of the risk?
It is this aspect that finally led to Hwang’s downfall. Starting with
Hwang’s human cloning report in 2004 there have been questions about where
he got all of the human eggs for his cloning experiments. The unraveling
began when an American scientist, Gerald Schatten of the University of
Pittsburgh, severed his 20-month collaboration with Hwang, intimating that
he had learned of serious ethical violations and that Hwang had lied about
some aspects of the research. As the story unfolded, it turned out that some
women were recruited as egg donors with cash payments, creating a “market”
for human egg trade. Others, including a student in his own laboratory,
donated their own eggs for the experiments. Having a subordinate donate to
an experiment raises serious questions of potential coercion, since the
professor has almost life or death power over a student or junior scientist.
After years of denials, Hwang finally admitted in a televised broadcast that
he had used eggs from paid donors and from his own lab workers—“I am very
sorry that I have to tell the public words that are too shameful and
horrible,” Hwang said. He resigned his position as leader of the World Stem
Cell Hub and some other positions, but planned to go back to work in his
lab. He noted that “I am so ashamed. I will not attempt to justify what I
did.”
Others have attempted to justify Hwang’s ethical lapses, noting that the
motives of science are for the greater good, and need not always align with
the views of general society. Hwang himself said that, “Being too focused on
scientific development, I may not have seen all the ethical issues related
to my research.” Others in the South Korean government said not to judge
Eastern culture by Western standards. Supporters of Hwang rallied around
him, to save face for the country, some threatening the South Korean
television station that first broke the news of the cloning scandal.
Shouldn’t there be a global norm for ethical values? Several scientists as
well as the journal Nature have called for this. As it happens, there
is a global norm already espoused. The United Nations passed a declaration
in March 2005 calling for a prohibition on all human embryo cloning. The
normative value here is human life and human dignity, the inherent worth of
all human beings should be defended no matter regardless of their
nationality, ethnicity, gender, or stage of development. CBHD
David A. Prentice, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow for Life
Sciences at the Family Research Council and
Advisory Board Member for CBHD.
Copyright 2005 by The Center for Bioethics and Human
Dignity
The contents of this article do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
CBHD, its staff, board or supporters. Permission to reprint granted as long as The Center for Bioethics and
Human Dignity and the web address for this article is referenced.
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