Just what the Stem cell controversy needs, more controversy... Not!

Just great! What an ass! It's bad enough what we, the supporters of Stem Cell Research, must put up with and now the guy we'd looked up to as a hero has let us all down. No doubt this will put fuel in the furnaces of the luddites to try and cook us with.

Well it won't matter and it won't phase us. There's more than just one person doing this work. We needn't put all our eggs in one basket. It might in fact be the pressures placed on him from the moronic luddites that drove him to allegedlt do this. He must have been feeling a desperate need to make breakthroughs that prove the worth of the science with so many lives waiting and hoping and depending on positive findings all while being unduly placed under the hotlamp by overly hostile uber critics.

Doc: Stem-Cell Pioneer Admitted Fake Data

By BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea - A doctor who provided human eggs for research by cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said in a broadcast Thursday that the South Korean scientist admitted that most of the stem cells produced for a key research paper were faked.

Roh Sung-il, chairman of the board at Mizmedi Hospital, told KBS television that Hwang had agreed to ask the journal Science to withdraw the paper, published in June to international acclaim. Roh was one of the co-authors of the article that detailed how individual stem cell colonies were created for 11 patients through cloning.

Roh also told MBC television that Hwang had pressured a former scientist at his lab to fake data to make it look like there were 11 stem cell colonies.

Roh said nine of the embryonic stem cell lines Hwang claimed were cloned in the paper were faked, and the authenticity of the other two was unknown.

Roh told MBC he heard from Hwang on Thursday morning that "there were no embryonic stem cells" because all colonies have since died in the lab.

Hwang did not answer his phone and researchers from his lab at Seoul National University could not immediately be reached for comment.

Hwang was staying at the university's hospital, spokesman Yang Sung-ki said Thursday evening. The researcher has been undergoing treatment there for stress since last week, the spokesman said.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, in the Philippines for a state visit, called for caution regarding the reports on Hwang's
work.

"Let's watch the situation," Roh said, according to Choi In-ho, the president's vice spokesman.

Sage advice indeed. Please see the continued article here.
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