Posted on 12/22/2005 6:43:15 PM PST by wagglebee
SEOUL (Reuters) - The results of a landmark 2005 paper on producing tailored embryonic stem cells were intentionally fabricated, a South Korean investigation panel said on Friday.
The nine-member panel from Seoul National University has been examining the work of stem-cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who faces charges from collaborators that key findings in their paper on producing tailored embryonic stem cells were fabricated.
The panel made the announcement at a televised news conference.
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More on Hwang Woo-suk and his fraudulent stem cell/cloning.
It's news in that it's a new development in the Hwang mess. South Korea is taking it hard. I don't know off the top of my head if Hwang was involved in the recent spinal injury case, which used umbilical, not embryonic stem cells.
The reason this case was important is that despite all the ballyhoo, in the united states mostly driven by the for-profit pro-abortion lobby looking for more markets for their only product, nobody's really been able to culture embryonic stem cells well. When they do culture, they become cancerous. That's why, despite California throwing tons of state money, despite Federal funding for certain cell lines, and despite the fact that there are no restrictions on private, corporate or foundation funding for embryonic stem cell research, there are no current experiments with stem cell therapy using these cells.
None. Zero. Zip.
Meanwhile, there are over 200 therapies (NOT experiments) using adult stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells may one day offer therapy for something, but it's far from certain. Meanwhile, successful therapies are starved of research funding because they don't require parting out human embryos.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Take a look at the other threads I posted. IIRC it was embryonic stem cells.
At a glance, Dr Hwang does not appear to have been involved in the spinal cord injury case in November.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1253284.htm
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Well, so he committed scientific suicide and is a wasted material by now. But his students and postdocs, even if they get cleared from scientific wrongdoing, will have pretty serious disruption in their professional lives. And since he was a senior scientist, he must have screwed up numerous people.
Instead, the effort has been hobbled by litigation that has kept the project from raising money. It has been second-guessed by public interest groups and legislators. And it has been consumed by the bureaucratic minutiae required to set up rules for administering grants.
It doesn't need to be "hobbled" when it's political science, without scientific merit... research worth doing sooner or later gets done (so does a lot of research not worth doing).
Embryonic stem cells have been sold as the cure-all that will make Christopher Reeve rise up like Lazarus (now, EXACTLY like Lazarus), but as yet there is no, literally no, evidence that they can do anything except grow cancers.
California voted to throw huge money at embryonic stem cells. They might as well spend it studying Piltdown Man or cold fusion. Or Creationism, for that matter. It is political science in the same vein as Lysenkoism was political science. It's a matter of fervid belief, not of evidence.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Yeah, I just saw a story on Don Ho. The procedure is not approved in the USA yet (Don has an uncommon heart disease, nonischemic cardiomyopathy. It's when your coronary arteries are NOT plugged but your heart goes bad anyway).
The story did say that the treatment used cells from Don's own marrow, but they did not really stress what that meant.
Here is Mike Fumento's blog subject on stem cells (very useful):
http://www.fumento.com/weblog/archives/stem_cells/index.html
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Thank you for the link! ... Not familiar (yet, but changing that aws) with Fumento.
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