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South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Monday called for an end of the debating over the stem cell research led by the country's famous professor, Hwang Woo-suk, who recently admitted ethical problems in his research.
The South Korean president also extended his support to the stem cell pioneer, pledging his government will continue to aid Hwang's research project. Roh also delivered his hope that Hwang would return to work as soon as possible.
Hours after Roh's remarks, the South Korean Ministry of Science and Technology on Monday vowed in a news release to continue its support for Hwang's research and to help the team concentrate on its research.
It was the first official statement made by the ministry since the controversy appeared over Hwang's job in the recent weeks.
Obviously, the South Korean government wants to bring an end to the controversy over Hwang's epoch-making research work, which was caused by a local TV station's program.
Hwang's team succeeded in cloning embryonic stem cells in 2004 for the first time in the world and again stunned the world in May 2005 by extracting embryonic stem cells from individual patients' somatic cells.
MBC-TV's investigative program "PD Notebook" released a serial of program for a month on digging into the truth over ethical and authentic problems in Hwang's research.
The program first quoted sources at Hwang's team as reporting Hwang used eggs donated by two female researchers in his team in the stem cell research. Even, "PD Notebook" also broadcast footage of interviewing one of the two ova donors.
The program seriously tarnished the fame of Hwang who is viewed as national hero because local people think Hwang has made South Korea's research on stem cells among the best in the world.
Under snowballing pressure, Hwang finally admitted in late November some ethical problems exited in his research process.
He admitted two fellow female researchers donated eggs for his research under forged names in 2003, which was viewed as a violation to the international ethical standards on bio-medical research.
Moreover, Hwang also admitted he only knew the fact recently that a local hospital, which provided human eggs for Hwang's research, gave compensation to ova donors two years ago.
Taking the responsibility upon himself for those unethical problems, Hwang resigned from the head of the World Stem Cell Hub based in South Korea and has kept himself hidden somewhere since then.
At that time, it seemed the MBC took the lead in the battle.
With Hwang's acknowledgment, the MBC's "PD Notebook" further challenged the authenticity of Hwang's research, claiming some of the stem cells Hwang's team have produced do not genetically match those of patient donors based on a series of independent DNA tests.
Hwang's team refuted the MBC's claim, saying the tests were proceeded in a wrong way. But Hwang himself did not appear to reject the MBC's claim.
When the row incandesced, MBC-TV abruptly made a public apology on last Sunday for some of its producers violated journalistic ethics in covering the story on probing truth of Hwang's stem cell research by threatening and lying to some of the researchers in Hwang's team.
The apology made the situation develop in a direction favoring Hwang. But, Hwang is not the winner in the debate.
The unethical spot in his research has already been verified and widely reported in the international community. Two international famous scientific journals -- Science and Nature -- have reportedly expressed dissatisfaction with Hwang's hiding of the truth when they published Hwang's paper on the research.
Despite the apology of the MBC, a number of allegations about Hwang's work have yet to be resolved. Some lawmakers of South Korea and civic groups demanded on Monday that the authenticity of Hwang's stem cell research be verified in a transparent and recognizable manner by a third party.
However, tens of thousand of local netizens expressed their support for the professor, accusing the MBC's report of lacking journalistic ethical standard and damaging South Korea's international image.
Concerns also grow in the local scientific community that international authoritative science journals may strengthen screening of South Korean scientists' development in research due to the row.
It seemed there is no winner in the "attack-and-defend battle" between the two parties -- MBC-TV, one of the three local major TV stations, and the professor, who is regarded as "national treasure" in South Korea.
(Xinhua News Agency December 6, 2005)
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