The hidden face of human cloning shows up : the rogue Korean scientist confesses that he falsified his results
In another shocking revelation, the Korean Professor Hwang Woo-Suk who had already confessed to the unethical practice having used oocytes “donated” by his subordinates, recognized that he had falsified results of research published in top-level scientific publications as Science. To read an abstract of his falsified article click here.
While Hwang had recognised having paid the oocytes donors (read one of our previous posts), he had also retracted an article published on the 19th of May 2005 in Science, and which revealed that he had “produced” 11 series of embryonic stem cells from a human clone embryo. According to a Korean independent commission of enquiry, Hwang had manipulated the photographs and data of two series of cells, to pretend that he had obtained 11 series from an embryo, which is false.
As these revelations surfaced, the wave of support for Hwang in Korea (we quoted in a previous post the web site where women volunteered to give oocytes) faded immediately. About 17.500 Korean scientists writing on the site www.scieng.net (in Korean) asked the Korean government to sanction Hwang saying that his works were a scientific “hoax”.
This comes as a salutary news as the public hysteria around stem cells was gaining politicians in various Western countries, where bills aiming to promote research on stem cells are being prepared. As many newspapers stressed, this means that cloning is not getting anywhere, for now. There are no tangible results, the methods are not even tested, and therapeutical possibilities pertain only to the domain of fantasy.
Because there is a good part of ideology in promoting stem cell research, some of the supporters of these researches such as Marc Peschanski (research director of the French Inserm) had been so lastingly blinded that he told Le Monde a few days ago: “I cannot imagine that Hwang Woo-Suk is a master-defrauder”. Read the interview of Peschanski here.
While Hwang had recognised having paid the oocytes donors (read one of our previous posts), he had also retracted an article published on the 19th of May 2005 in Science, and which revealed that he had “produced” 11 series of embryonic stem cells from a human clone embryo. According to a Korean independent commission of enquiry, Hwang had manipulated the photographs and data of two series of cells, to pretend that he had obtained 11 series from an embryo, which is false.
As these revelations surfaced, the wave of support for Hwang in Korea (we quoted in a previous post the web site where women volunteered to give oocytes) faded immediately. About 17.500 Korean scientists writing on the site www.scieng.net (in Korean) asked the Korean government to sanction Hwang saying that his works were a scientific “hoax”.
This comes as a salutary news as the public hysteria around stem cells was gaining politicians in various Western countries, where bills aiming to promote research on stem cells are being prepared. As many newspapers stressed, this means that cloning is not getting anywhere, for now. There are no tangible results, the methods are not even tested, and therapeutical possibilities pertain only to the domain of fantasy.
Because there is a good part of ideology in promoting stem cell research, some of the supporters of these researches such as Marc Peschanski (research director of the French Inserm) had been so lastingly blinded that he told Le Monde a few days ago: “I cannot imagine that Hwang Woo-Suk is a master-defrauder”. Read the interview of Peschanski here.
posted by dawnofeurope | 6:05 pm
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