Women_s Groups Demand Egg Donation Probe

Korea_s already battered biotech industry faces a fresh challenge from women_s rights activists angry at what they see as a high-handed approach to occyte procurement for cloning and other embryonic research. Some 30 women_s rights groups including Korea Women's Associations United (KWAU) on Wednesday urged authorities to investigate egg cell procurement for experiments by the disgraced cloning researcher Hwang Woo-suk. The groups made the call in a press conference at the Seoul Press Center.

The activists said the government was so dazzled by the profits it expected stem cell technology to net the nation that it became blind to the danger to women_s life and health from donating eggs. They said there was an urgent need to discover how many eggs from how many donors were used in Hwang_s experiments, what motivated the donors, how the eggs were extracted, and what institutions were involved. They also called for an investigation of whether two junior researchers in Hwang_s team were pressured to donate their own eggs, and demanded that the government compensate donors for any damage to their health from the...