In a May 12 article in the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick began her story on the indictment of Hwang Woo-Suk and five associates with the text: South Korean prosecutors announced today that they have charged scientist Hwang Woo-suk with embezzlement and fraud, alleging that he misused public funds for his fabricated human cloning experiments.

The article is interesting in what it didn’t say about two areas that might be of relevance to people interested in how Proposition 71 will play out in California: the egg donation issue and the multi-fraud issue.

As for egg retrieval, the Times article failed to mention that Hwang Woo-Suk was also accused of violating Korea’s bioethics law, adopted in January 2005. He paid money to women to obtain eggs for his research.

In December 2005, a US stem cell researcher, commenting on what he considered hyperventilation over the egg donation problem in Hwang’s lab, said that “now that [Hwang] has made his mea culpa public, I say it is time to forgive him and let him return to his considerable trade.” The same researcher also wrote: We pay women to donate eggs for infertility treatment, and overall the practice has done reasonably well. The ESC research donation is just as important. As long as the complete information, coverage, etc. are there, there is no reason per se why some financial compensation is not provided.

South Korea had adopted a strong legal framework regarding the procurement of human eggs. He was raped almost immediately, and now we have an indictment. Although the Los Angeles Times had written on April 27: [CIRM] has also adopted world-class standards for research ethics and the protection of potential egg donors, one points out that more than standards are needed to make sure people are protected. Embryonic stem cell research requires human eggs, and the pressure on researchers to obtain them is immense. Although it was widely rumored that Hwang Woo-Suk pressured his subordinates to donate eggs for his 2004 Science paper, and then paid for the eggs, little action was taken at the time.

The issue of pressure is present in the issue of multiple fraud in the Hwang affair. Although the May 12 Times article wrote that “prosecutors said Hwang and an assistant fabricated the data in two historical documents,” the situation is a bit more complicated. Prosecutors confirmed Hwang’s initial claims that one of his junior researchers, Kim Sun Jong, falsified the results of the 2004 and 2005 studies and that Hwang was initially unaware of this falsification. This was not a one person fraud, or a two person concerted fraud. Hwang was actually cheated on by his subordinate Kim Sun Jong. This is not to say that Hwang has not committed fraud. He did. However, the Hwang Saga illustrates how the pressures of the investigation can cause bad acts, both for a junior investigator (Kim Sun Jong) and a team leader (Hwang Woo Suk). Although the May 12 Times article claims that Hwang is now “despised as a charlatan,” the current situation, especially in South Korea, is more complex. Hwang wrote many articles that were accurate, and just as he was the perpetrator of the fraud, he was also the victim of the fraud. And, just as people in California want to believe in the end result of stem cell research, so do people in South Korea.

Kim Sun Jong’s story illustrates another point of relevance for Proposition 71. One of the selling points for state funding of stem cell research, in the face of limitations on federal funding created by President Bush in 2001, was to prevent a loss of research. presence of the United States to other countries. If there were no funding in the US, all the American stars of stem cell research would pack up and go to foreign countries more favorably disposed to stem cell research, and the US would lose its edge in this potential high impact area. . Kim Sun Jong’s story is a counterpoint to this thinking. Kim Sun Jong, who worked in a team considered a world leader in stem cell research, falsified research results to obtain exchange scholarships in the US, according to Korean prosecutors. He made it to the US, specifically Gerald Schatten’s lab at the University of Pittsburgh, which has garnered the most federal support for stem cell research. Ironically, following up on Hwang’s fraud tips, Korean MBC-TV producers interviewed Kim Sun Jong in Pittsburgh on October 20, 2005 and, quite presciently at the time, told Kim that both articles Hwang’s scientists would retract. .

In short, by not mentioning the egg-getting issue and the multiple fraud issue, the May 12 article in the Los Angeles Times missed an opportunity to illuminate two high-impact issues in the implementation of Prop 71. It will take eggs to conduct embryonic stem cell research, and the potential for abuse, and disregard of that abuse, in obtaining eggs is a significant and predictable problem. Because the abuse in Korea occurred in the face of strict laws, the statement that CIRM has adopted strict standards regarding egg donation is not the final answer to this problem. The pressure on investigators to obtain meaningful results can lead to fraud. The Hwang affair involved independent fraud by at least two investigators, and does not fit neatly into the “one bad apple” picture.