Editorial: Oocytes for sale?

Don't count eggs until standards hatch

When Californians approved Proposition 71 to create the state's $3 billion stem cell institute, it is doubtful that voters realized the enterprise would depend on women - possibly hundreds of women - providing their eggs for science.
During the campaign last year, Proposition 71 supporters didn't talk much about the subject of egg "donors" to avoid contentious ethical and medical issues.

Now, however, there is no escaping the fact that scientists will need large numbers of oocytes - immature human eggs - to conduct research authorized by the initiative. And so the Institute for Regenerative Medicine is confronting thorny questions: How will scientists obtain these eggs? At what cost? And how will they ensure that women's rights are protected when they undergo possibly risky procedures in the name of research?

These questions became doubly important this month after a leading South Korean scientist was accused of skirting ethical standards to obtain eggs for his experiments. The scientist in question, Hwang Woo-suk, is a giant in stem cell research. Last year his team became the...