Green and fresh eggs

From the JoongAng Daily (Korea), Dated September 22 (tomorrow’s news, today!)

Roh Sung-il, the director of MizMedi Hospital, a fertility clinic in Seoul that provided eggs to Seoul National University Professor Hwang Woo-suk for the latter’s stem cell research, admitted yesterday that he paid about 20 women 1.5 million won ($1,430) each for eggs that he then donated to Dr. Hwang. He added, however, that those transactions took place before laws forbidding them came into effect. He said Dr. Hwang did not know about his transactions with the women.

Human oocytes – and the risk of medication and invasive procedures – should cost money. Men have been paid for their sperm donations for years. I even heard about “compensation” for oocyte donation when I was inschool – and very, very poor, so $1000 looked tempting (in 1990). But, I knew that the oocytes, if fertilized, would be my children, and I couldn’t bear with harming my own children. I definitely did not contemplate some of the uses that we know about, now.

The only question is why would a physician and supposedly reputable scientists lie, cheat, and break laws and then continue to lie about it?

Here are more news stories:
From The International Tribune Pacific-Asia

And here’s a great editorial, speaking of farming, Albert Schweitzer, and stem cells, called. “Don’t turn Hwang into Dr. Moreau.”