The Stem-Cell Scam

Since Dr. Hwang’s claims of unprecedented success … our leading newspapers and journals have been filled with the anguished cries for Hollywood producers, Nobel Prize winners and famous journalists. America is falling behind the rest of the world, they have said. … It was an argument intended to appeal to just those Americans who believe that nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of American primacy. This equated American advancement with government spending – the concealed premise of the argument.
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It is important to emphasize that stem cell research in the U.S. is perfectly legal. It’s just is that the access to the federal funding is restricted.
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The developments in South Korea are an embarrassment to some, especially to the hapless taxpayers of S. Korea, but if these developments have the effect of making us all more suspicious of breakthroughs made in the name of bio-engineering, we will all have learned a useful lesson. And we will have learned it at the expense of Korean taxpayers rather than at our own expense.

By Tom Bethel
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At least up until the first week of December this year, it sounded like the U.S. had been the biggest "innocent" victim of this scandal. Having already lost the lead in the stem cell research to the Britin, their own research, they lamented, "indeed" was showing a pitible, staggering progress due to the Bush ban, or lack of any substantial funding therefor. Now the Hwang scandal broke out a month ago and is under intense scrutinity, some American stem cell researchers are worried that it is they who will suffer the most from the fallout, if the case proves to be an outright fraud, that is. Still, Amerca is America. Who would dare to challenge their lofry standards and national pride? It is Korea who got a bloody hand after all.