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Korean

geneticists

claims they

succeeded in

cloning.

Hwang Woo-Suk, a geneticist in purposes that would benefit the states that they shall obtain writ-
South Korea, with his team of re- volunteers and their families. ten consent from both the sperm
searchers claimed they had cloned Some of them were not informed or oocytes donors which need to
a human embryo for the first time about the risks of egg donation include the details of purpose of
and that they had yielded eleven and the purpose of the experi- producing an embryo.
stem cell lines from it. According ments. In addition, some women's
to an article in Science magazine ovaries were completely removed The Seoul Central District
in 2005, Hwang stated that all the without their consent. Court convicted Hwang for em-
women that volunteer to donate bezzling money and bioethics vio-
their eggs (oocytes) for his exper- The National Bioethics lations related to his research.
iments do not receive any com- Hwang was denied his license of
pensation in return. He claimed to research in human cloning. He
have collected 242 eggs from 16 was sentenced to two years in
prison at the Seoul Central Dis-
women in 2004 and 185 eggs trict Court on 26 October, after
from 18 women in 2005. Howev- being found guilty of embezzle-
er, in 2006, subsequent investiga- ment and bioethical violations but
tions have found that many of the cleared of fraud. Hwang admitted
results were fabricated by Hwang. in January 2006 to falsifying data,
Investigations revealed that he has while maintaining that he had the
collected over 2000 eggs from ability to do what he had claimed.
119 women, two of them are from In South Korea, scientific fraud
his research team. He has used would be illegal only if Hwang
more eggs than he had accounted had used fraudulent data to gain
for in the experiments. grants. However, the court did
find Hwang guilty of buying hu-
Investigations by the Kore- man eggs in violation of the coun-
an National Bioethics Committee Committee's report outlined the try's bioethics law and of embez-
and the Seoul National Universi- ethical violations caused by zling 830 million won
ty, in 2006 reported that Hwang Hwang's research. Ethical review (USD700,000) of government
had paid most of the egg donors boards require researchers to in- money.
for their eggs. He is able to collect form research participants about
many eggs unethically by pur- any risks of the procedure. He has
chasing from egg brokers on the been punished due to violating the
internet. He also had lied about Bioethics and Safety Act 2008
using their eggs for therapeutic (Act No. 9100) under chapter 3,
section 1, Article 15 where it