So scientists are looking for other ways to make adult cells pluripotent. It is a worldwide effort. A researcher in Shanghai has been injecting human stem cells into chicken eggs, with mixed results—while others cluck in disapproval. It’s not clear now whether such procedures will work.
It’s equally unclear whether the stem cell dream—transplants without rejection, spinal cord injuries repaired, and so on—will come true. Advocates have made dishonest claims, and media speculation has been fantastical for years. People with serious illnesses have been led to believe a cure is just around the corner. Sadly, this is not true. Working therapeutic approaches lie many years in the future, perhaps decades. Many thoughtful scientists have said, in private, that we won’t know whether stem cell therapy will work until 2050. They point out that it took forty years from the time Watson and Crick decoded the gene until human gene therapy began.
A SCANDAL SHOCKS THE WORLD
It was in the context of feverish hope and hype that Korean biochemist Hwang Woo-Suk announced in 2004 that he had successfully created a human embryonic stem cell from an adult cell by somatic nuclear transfer—injection into a human egg. Hwang was a famous workaholic, spending eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, in the lab. Hwang’s exciting report was published in March 2005 in Science magazine. Researchers from around the world flocked to Korea. Human stem cell treatment seemed suddenly on the verge of reality. Hwang was a hero in Korea, and appointed to head a new World Stem Cell Hub, financed by the Korean government.
But in November 2005, an American collaborator in Pittsburgh announced that he was ending his association with Hwang. And then one of Hwang’s co-workers revealed that Hwang had obtained eggs illegally, from women who worked in his lab.
By December 2005, Seoul National University announced that Hwang’s cell lines were a fabrication, as were his papers in Science. Science retracted the papers. Hwang now faces criminal charges. There the matter stands.
PERILS OF “MEDIA HYPE”
“What lessons can be drawn from this?” asked Professor McKeown. “First, in a media-saturated world, persistent hype lends unwarranted credulity to the wildest claims. For years the media have touted stem cell research as the coming miracle. So when somebody announced that the miracle had arrived, he was believed. Does that imply there is a danger in media hype? You bet. Because not only does it raise cruel hopes among the ill, it affects scientists, too. They start to believe the miracle is around the corner—even though they should know better.
“What can we do about media hype? It would stop in a week, if scientific institutions wanted that. They don’t. They love the hype. They know it brings grants. So that won’t change. Yale, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins promote hype just as much as Exxon or Ford. So do individual researchers at those institutions. And increasingly, researchers and universities are all commercially motivated, just like corporations. So whenever you hear a scientist claim that his statements have been exaggerated, or taken out of context, just ask him if he has written a letter of protest to the editor. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he hasn’t.
“Next lesson: Peer review. All of Hwang’s papers in Science were peer-reviewed. If we ever needed evidence that peer review is an empty ritual, this episode provides it. Hwang made extraordinary claims. He did not provide extraordinary evidence. Many studies have shown that peer review does not improve the quality of scientific papers. Scientists themselves know it doesn’t work. Yet the public still regards it as a sign of quality, and says, ‘This paper was peer-reviewed,’ or ‘This paper was not peer-reviewed,’ as if that meant something. It doesn’t.
“Next, the journals themselves. Where was the firm hand of the editor of Science? Remember that the journal Science is a big enterprise—115 people work on that magazine. Yet gross fraud, including photographs altered with Adobe Photoshop, were not detected. And Photoshop is widely known as a major tool of scientific fraud. Yet the magazine had no way to detect it.
“Not that Science is unique in being fooled. Fraudulent research has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, where authors withheld critical information about Vioxx heart attacks; in the Lancet, where a report about drugs and oral cancer was entirely fabricated—in that one, 250 people in the patient database had the same birth date! That might have been a clue. Medical fraud is more than a scandal, it’s a public health threat. Yet it continues.”
THE COST OF FRAUD
“The cost of such fraud is enormous,” McKeown said, “estimated at thirty billion dollars annually, probably three times that. Fraud in science is not rare, and it’s not limited to fringe players. The most respected researchers and institutions have been caught with faked data. Even Francis Collins, the head of NIH’s Human Genome Project, was listed as co-author on five faked papers that had to be withdrawn.
“The ultimate lesson is that science isn’t special—at least not anymore. Maybe back when Einstein talked to Niels Bohr, and there were only a few dozen important workers in every field. But there are now three million researchers in America. It’s no longer a calling, it’s a career. Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other. Its practitioners aren’t saints, they’re human beings, and they do what human beings do—lie, cheat, steal from one another, sue, hide data, fake data, overstate their own importance, and denigrate opposing views unfairly. That’s human nature. It isn’t going to change.”
CH008
In the BioGen animal lab, Tom Weller was going down the line of cages with Josh Winkler, who was dispensing doses of gene-laced virus to the rats. It was their daily routine. Tom’s cell phone rang.
Josh gave him a look. Josh was his senior. Josh could take calls at work, but Tom couldn’t. Weller stripped off one rubber glove and pulled the phone from his pocket.
“Hello?”
“Tom.”
It was his mother. “Hi, Mom. I’m at work now.”
Josh gave him another look.
“Can I call you back?”
“Your dad had a car accident last night,” she said. “And…he died.”
“What?” He felt suddenly dizzy. Tom leaned against the rat cages, took a shallow breath. Now Josh was giving him a concerned look. “What happened?”
“His car hit an overpass around midnight,” his mother said. “They took him to Long Beach Memorial Hospital, but he died early this morning.”
“Oh God. Are you at home?” Tom said. “You want me to come over? Does Rachel know?”
“I just got off the phone.”
“Okay, I’ll come over,” he said.
“Tom, I hate to ask you this,” she said, “but…”
“You want me to tell Lisa?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t seem to reach her.” Lisa was the black sheep of the family. The youngest child, just turned twenty. Lisa hadn’t talked to her mother in years. “Do you know where she is these days, Tom?”
“I think so,” he said. “She called a few weeks ago.”
“To ask for money?”
“No, just to give me her address. She’s in Torrance.”
“I can’t reach her,” his mother said.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“Tell her the funeral is Thursday, if she wants to come.”
“I’ll tell her.”
He flipped the phone shut and turned to Josh. Josh was looking concerned and sympathetic. “What was it?”
“My father died.”
“I’m really sorry…”
“Car crash, last night. I need to go tell my sister.”