SEOUL — An investigation by Seoul National University found that South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk had made fraudulent claims involving cloning human embryonic stem cells.
But Hwang has a worthy rival in Kim Myong-Dok, department director of North Korea’s Ministry of Public Health.
Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as claiming that scientists at North Korea’s Academy of Medical Science had developed “injection Nyuamin, polyamino acid sap for post-operation and post-illness weakness, tuberculosis, hepatitis and other diseases” as well as a taxol injection potent “for various kinds of cancers.”
He’s also discovered ways for “manufacturing them by industrial method,” according to KCNA.
Kim offered a reason for such breakthroughs in science.
“The successes are attributable to the socialist public health system of the country centered on the popular masses,” he said.
The KCNA dispatch said scientists at the Academy of Koryo Medical Science — a separate group specializing in traditional medicines — have “found out diagnosis and treatment methods according to kinds of chronic pancreatitis and developed chinijhwang [steamed foxglove] fine tablets efficacious for the disease.”
And, would you believe, “its efficacy is 89.2 percent.”
“The efforts were crowned with successes in developing agents for diagnosing viral diseases and many kinds of health food, including huimang No. 2, pine pollen nutritive pills and Kumgang natural health water” — the last, of course, from the tourist complex at Mount Kumgang.
All these, said KCNA, “are efficacious for nervous system disorders and good for the improvement of health.”
KCNA neglected, however, to report on the controversy surrounding Hwang Woo-Suk, who fell into disgrace after revelations of distortions, errors and fabrications in his research.
That scandal forced deep soul searching as to the nature of research and development in all fields in South Korea.
Hwang’s research “grew into a state project with government backing and then became the people’s project,” says a commentary in Chosun Ilbo, Korea’s largest-selling newspaper.
Scientists “kept mum because they saw hope in one of their own becoming a national hero, and the government was happy to bask in reflected glory without asking too many questions,” the newspaper stated.
At the same time, Korea laboratory chiefs are notorious for demanding loyalty from juniors — and taking credit for papers they may have only read briefly. Papers are often signed by multiple contributors, some of whom the lead scientist recognizes as a collegial favor.
“You have to do whatever the lab chief says,” says a young graduate student in a university laboratory. “You have no power over anything even if you do all the work. I know what happens in my lab, and I can see what happened under Dr. Hwang.”
