Why I Don't Trust Scientists

Another compelling example of greed and ethics lapses among the white coat set, this time regarding "therapeutic" cloning:

All this, and especially that comment about the willing egg donors, blew up in Hwang’s face on November 12. Gerald Schatten, a University of Pittsburgh stem-cell expert who coauthored Hwang’s more recent paper, pulled out of the worldwide coalition, citing disturbing evidence that Hwang’s team had misrepresented how they obtained Korean women’s eggs. Further investigation by news media uncovered the truth, admitted by Hwang himself at a jam-packed press conference on November 24. Although Hwang’s article in Science insisted that “no financial reimbursement in any form,” not even reimbursement of expenses, had been paid to egg donors, in fact the fertility doctor accepting these donations had made cash payments (the equivalent of U.S. $1,430) to each woman; and while Hwang had insisted that no donations were accepted from female members of his research team, the donors did include junior researchers (including at least one graduate student under Hwang’s supervision).

So Hwang’s team lied about these facts, and even encouraged the egg donors to lie, by having them sign consent forms declaring that their egg donations were “free of element of any financial reward or conflict-of-interest.”

It is said that these lapses were not illegal under Korean regulations in force at the time. (A Korean ban on paying egg donors in research went into effect later.) But they raised serious ethical issues in terms of the incentives (direct financial incentives, or implied professional incentives) given to women to encourage them to endanger their own health in the name of research. And as so many politicians have learned, all this was made much worse by the denials and cover-up afterward.

Dr. Hwang has apologized for not paying closer attention to these issues and has resigned as director of the proposed Worldwide Stem Cell Hub; but he will undoubtedly continue his research. He is also receiving a great deal of public support in his home country, where he continues to be seen as a national hero.

In reality, however, this scandal is only the tip of the iceberg. The South Korean experiments, indeed the research cloning agenda in general, have long ignored legitimate concerns about women’s rights and have long been promoted by ignoring or subverting the facts.

What is most troubling, of course, is that these researchers clearly felt the ends justified the means.

This is of course EXACTLY what bioethicists have been afraid of---that the pursuit of grant money and the hucksterism of scientists and their fan club in the media will lead to monstrous violations of human dignity and freedom.

Before you cluck-cluck at my Chicken Littleism, reach back in your memory to that commercial a few years ago where Christopher Reeve was digitally made to walk again, on the basis of some "promising" new therapy for spinal trauma.

Hasn't quite panned out, has it? Certainly not for Mr. Reeve, who is beyond recovery of the temporal sort routinely promised by people who beg for grant money on the basis of false hopes and, in this case, outright lies.

Let the buyer beware.