Scientist Who Exposed Hwang Woo-suk’s Stem Cell Fraud Comes Forward

Here is a perfect example of why the safety and cheating culture that is pervasive in South Korea is so hard to change:

The whistleblower who exposed breakthrough cloning research as a devastating fake says South Korea is still dominated by the values that allowed science fraudster Hwang Woo-suk to become an almost untouchable national hero.

In an interview with The Associated Press after almost a decade of silence, Ryu Young-joon, one of Hwang’s former researchers, said the cost of telling the truth still weighs on him but he doesn’t regret his decision to out Hwang as a false prophet.

The revelations in 2005 rocked South Korea which had celebrated Hwang’s research as a historic achievement, focused unfavorable attention on the country and diminished the reputation of its scientific establishment. The memory of the scandal is still painful today and Hwang, though convicted of embezzlement and violating bioethical laws, discredited and relegated to the scientific backwater of pet cloning, retains a loyal following among sections of the public and media.

In the nearly 10 years since Hwang’s accomplishments were found to be built on lies, Ryu feels little has changed in a society where cozy ties between government, business, the media and academics stifle criticism and foster blind nationalism. And junior researchers still face great pressure to produce the results their scientific mentors want and lack a formal channel for whistleblowing.

South Korea, said Ryu, is still obsessed with joining the ranks of advanced countries and to achieve that end, many people believe it is acceptable to sacrifice ethics, safety and other concerns.

“Mr. Hwang is not a peculiar person. He is a portrait of us. He shows the South Korean society as it is,” Ryu said. “Most people believe that if we play by the rules, we can’t catch up with the advanced economies.”  [Associated Press via the Korea Economic Reader]

You can read the rest at the link, but what I find ironic about South Korean society being so caught up in catching up with advanced economies is that South Korea already is an advanced economy.  The country economically has caught up and now it is time for Korean culture to change to realize this.

What is really sad about this is that Ryu instead of being thanked for exposing this fraud nearly a decade ago was demonized and lost his job. Even after learning of the fraud the then Roh Moo-hyun administration tried to cover it up.  After the fraud could not be covered up, many Koreans still viewed Hwang as a national hero instead of the fraud that he was.

You can read more about Hwang’s fraud by digging back into the ROK Drop archives at the below links:

• Is this Why Dr. Hwang Woo-suk Committed Scientific Fraud?
• Korean Government Knew of Stem Cell Fraud
• Stem Cell Forgery Professor Steps Down from SNU
• Korean Scientist Admits to Faking Stem Cell Research