UPDATE: MBC ’s producers are standing by PD Notebook.
ORIGINAL POST: With supporters of Korean stem cell research maverick Hwang Woo-suk launching a candle-light protest in front of broadcaster MBC and even President Roh warning that things had gotten out of hand, the Kookmin Ilbo (Korean) reported that the clash between MBC and Korea’s netizen community was likely to grow in intensity.
In fact, netizen fury is focusing not on whether or a report by MBC investigative program "PD Notebook," which broke the news on possible ethics guideline violations by Hwang’s research team during the process of procuring human eggs, was true or false, but rather on the fact that the report "harmed Korea’s national interests."
Through the phone and Internet, the members of Hwang’s online Fan Club "I Love Hwang Woo-suk" have led a campaign to pressure advertisers to withdraw their ads from "PD Notebook." As of Sunday, 11 of 12 advertisers had pulled their ads. In particular, the remaining advertiser, a foreign manufacturing firm (Michelin Tires, wrongly identified as an American company on the "I Love Hwang Woo-suk" bulletin board), has been declared a "public enemy of the Korean people." Another Internet company with a banner on MBC’s homepage has been targeted with a membership cancellation campaign. According to the Kookmin Ilbo, some members of the club have questioned whether this might amount to nothing more than a witch hunt, but they have so far been buried by emotionally charged netizen opinion.
Netizen fury has been directed at media, groups and individuals that have supported MBC’s PD Notebook as well. The homepage of the Democratic Labor Party, which issued a statement stressing the need to oversee ethical issues in stem cell research, has been flooded with critical posts, some even declaring withdrawal of support for the party. On the homepage of an MBC debate program that discussed the Hwang scandal and PD Notebook, debaters that took sides with PD Notebook were being castigated, and the real name of one female audience member who appeared to defend PD Notebook was posted, along with warnings that netizens would not let her comments pass.
Some netizens have even circulated family photos taken from the personal blog of one of the producers of PD Notebook, with comments threatening them with violence. The PD Notebook production team has asked the police cyber-crimes division to investigate.
MBC has so far held off on making an official position statement. Sungkonghoe University journalism professor Kim Chang-nam said, "This incident shows just how much the ideology of national interest can mislead people." He said that when one considers both the fact that PD Notebook’s report was correct and that the results would have been much more serious had the foreign media been the first to break the story surrounding the ethical questions surrounding Hwang’s egg procurement process, netizens should refrain from the activities in which they are currently engaged.
An official with "Media Watch," a media consumer group, said that TV viewers were also victims, noting that they have been misled by media that did nothing but glow over Hwang’s achievements while failing to investigate problems when they should have.
MARMOT’S NOTE: Needless to day, netizen behavior of this sort is probably counterproductive, and some of it outright illegal. Personally, I like Prof. Hwang, and I really do hope he’s able to sort things out. And I should also note that "investigative journalism" in Korea can, at times, leave much to be desired, even if in this case, the accusations leveled against Hwang seem to have been correct. In addition to being brilliant and incredibly hard-working, Hwang is also remarkably classy, so I’m hoping he makes a statement calling for cooler heads to prevail. After all, I’m sure he understands that whatever public opinion might be, the issues he must now deal with are serious, and they won’t go away simply by rallying around the flag.
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42 Comments
Babies, they are. Mental babies. They would rather live in their fantasy than face the reality. They engage in killing the messenger for bringing the bad news!
Dr.Hwang is like their father, they would say. Dr.Hwang is the best Korean they can imagine. Dr.Hwang will bring so much wealth and prestige to Korea, they dream.
Wake up. He is a liar. Certified!
SKs are taught by media to revere Hwang like a father. It is akin to NK’s blind love toward Kim IlSung. MBC protestors need parental love.
Did someone among them say,”Heil!” with a stretched arm?
National interest, my ass. He broke the rules. Everyone else in the world does research obeying these rules. His fault. Not MBC’s fault. Korea needs to elect a different , conservative, more educated President. It’s so unhealthy, commy, liberal, ignorant, and super nationalistic right now.
This new religion called “science” is taking over. Its believers will hurt, steal from, lie to and even kill others all in the name of Science.
And, if this Science thing brings money and fame, it should be called by the old and true name, “Mammon”.
Sorry to say, I practice this religion too. I have MS degree in Chemistry and presently working to gain MS in Computer Science. But, I do not lie. I do not steal. I do not hurt others. My science is under the control of the more powerful religion, the belief in Christianity.
Hwang may be smart and a hardworker, but he is also an admitted liar.
This incident is a very good example of how many Koreans believe it is all right to lie or to hide the truth on behalf of what is preceived to be national interest, but which is really just national “face.”
Even MBC said they felt bad about exposing the truth. I also remember SBS saying the same thing when they had to expose the lie about the giant Japanese spike at the summit of Mount Baekdu. Why should people feel bad about exposing the truth?
Probably the biggest lie and biggest conspiracy in Korea today is the Korean claim on Dokdo. Not only is the Korean government, media, and academia involved in covering up that big lie, even foreigners have been sucked in as well, either out of ignorance or fear of consequences.
Koreans have to learn not to be afraid of the truth. As long as they believe that it is all right to lie to save national face, Korea will never become a truly mature society.
Hey, bevers, I agreed with you until I read the issue about Dokdo.
Katz, that is Gerry’s claim to fame.
Well there is an ad in Korea that’s tells you to say NO, when everyone’s saying YES
“netizen fury”
“emotionally charged netizen opinion”
“Netizen fury”
Sigh. Netizen opinion would become newsworthy the moment it ISN’T about fury or being emotionally charged.
I’m glad the media is reporting on how out of hand this is. Threatening the family members of the MBC crew’s family? Even SOME of the members of the I love Hwang fan club realize that’s out of hand, so I have hopes that people with less “fury” about this issue will feel the same.
These media-savvy and Internet-savvy groups (not unlike the hate-the-Korean-wave folks in the story above) are very good at making a lot of noise. Noise that is aimed at scaring advertisers and content providers. Getting eleven of twelve sponsors to drop their support? Geez. I hope MBC comes out with a carefully worded message that shames thse Netizens of Fury.
I have had my own run-in with these Netizens of Fury and their orchestrated campaign. It’s a little long, so I’ll save it for my own blog, but the end result was that I was the target of a highly orchestrated campaign by an interest group to make their opinion seem like the majority opinion by people who were actually on the wrong end of public opinion.
In some ways, targeting advertisers reminds me of groups like Brent Bozell’s, which orchestrated a campaign of outrage over Nipplegate, trying to make the entire country seem shocked and dismayed when the incident was the most TIVO-ed ever. I’m not saying that public criticism of Hwang is the majority opinion, but it’s probably far greater than these Netizens of Fury would like to believe.
Welcome to the future… Where all communication is digital… Information was never more malleable. I’m scared, aren’t you?
The interesting thing, for me, is the statement that Dr Hwang made regarding neither he, nor his research team, being aware of the Declaration in Helsinki (1964) outlining the do’s and don’t’s of medical research using human subjects.
Now, call me stupid, but one would THINK that someone doing research using human stem cells would KNOW about this little declaration. I am not overly optomistic when it comes to a scientist who deals with human beings, not being aware of international ethical standards.
This is a minor attention to detail thing that just leaves me cold. If his attention to detail is this derailed, what other details did he leave out of his research??
Gillian and I agree on the conclusion (that Dr. Hwang’s current problem raises significant questions about his research, but differ thus:
The interesting thing, for me, is the statement that Dr Hwang made regarding neither he, nor his research team, being aware of the Declaration in Helsinki (1964) outlining the do’s and don’t’s of medical research using human subjects.
Now, call me stupid, but one would THINK that someone doing research using human stem cells would KNOW about this little declaration.
DOES know and SHOULD know are different. I agree that probably Dr. Hwang SHOULD HAVE known about these international ethics standards, but tend to believe that he didn’t know.
Dr. Hwang is a VETERINARIAN by training, and probably doesn’t think of research using oocytes as being equivalent to human experimentation, which makes it less likely that he would be prompted even to look for relevant international treaties on human experimentation. Plus factor in the fact that although Dr. Hwang and his team do read English, to be sure, in all likelihood they “read for content” (i.e. to find the exact specific fact they’re looking for) rather than simply to acquire knowledge generally.
This isn’t meant to excuse the fact that he and his team didn’t know (if indeed he didn’t know), but to illustrate how it could be possible that he didn’t know.
Of course, there’s still the timeline issue. The official Hwang line is that he became aware of his oocyte-source problem in 2004 and covered up the truth from that time until now. That’s still a significant failure of ethics that can be blamed on him, and does raise the question of what other “embarrassing” matters might still be covered up.
Remember, Dr. Hwang is still concealing part of his research methods behind the veil of “protecting Korean intellectual property.” Last guy who said “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” turned out to be a charlatan — could Hwang be next?
Gillian, I see your point, but I think it may be a case of focusing too much on one thing causing too little focus on the other.
Frankly, I can imagine a situation where Korean scientists might be more aware of Korean laws/regulations than an international convention. And as has been pointed out, it’s not like this comes anywhere close to being followed 100% in other major science-producing nations.
I think people are forgetting that there are TWO ethics violations going on here. One was how he collected the eggs, which I think is a fairly minor violation. The second was how he LIED about the first ethics violation, which is more serious. Once Hwang and his lab showed they are willing to lie about their research, it becomes much harder to trust their results.
I hate to repeat the old cliche, but once again the coverup is worse than the original mistake.
Agreed as to the problem of the lying. However, I did a very quick google search, and Dr. Hwang’s name shows up on a significant amount of medical research papers. So, in connecting the dots, one would assume that someone along the line, since none of the research papers had his name alone, he would have heard of the Declaration in Helsinki. Second, yes he is a vet by training, but the minute he jumped into human medical research, it became his responsiblility to find out about the ethical rules and regs, unless of course, he had no intention of presenting his work on the world stage, which clearly is not the case.
Just on a hunch, I did a quick google search. I typed in the following: ethical+standards+medical+research
Some 8 million sites popped up. Daunting indeed if I were a junior research assistant whose native language was not English. However, when I clicked into the very first site, guess what popped up? You got it, the original Declaration in Helsinki. Hum. Now how hard was that?
Gillian I posted it in a previous post:
“46% of the Korean life science researchers have never heard of it(additional 40% have heard of it but don’t know the content), and a surprising percentage of Korean reserachers have never taken ethics class. (I thought ethic classes were compulsory, guess not)”
Can this be an excuse? NO. But the probability that he really did not know is pretty high.
I agree with Brendan Carr. The fact that he used an ethically corrupt method to get his eggs is one thing but the fact that he lied about it for so long leads me to question what else he has lied about and the validity of his work. The Pith-downs man and other examples come to mind here. I think it is reprehensible that people in Korea are willing to look the other way on something like this just because they think it will bring honor and money to their country regardless of the results. I dont begrudge the guy success but I am offended that a percentage of the public thinks that by any means necessary is an acceptable way to conduct this type of research-even when they know it is wrong.
“netizen”= nutbar
Something interesting is brewing in Korea media. http://news.joins.com/society/.....03011.html
It is in Korean but basically MBC reporters threaten one of Hwang’s team members identified as “K” to spill the beans. They threatened him about possible prison sentence and questioned him about Hwang’s results. “K” may have confessed some damaging facts to MBC reporters, which at present time have not been made public.
It is my guess that he may have “blown” the cover of Hwang’s results. Evidently, he got sick after meeting MBC reporters. And, now he is complaining about strong-arm tactics of MBC journalists.
I think more will come out. I hope Koreans finally find out about Hwang’s so-called earthshaking discoveries; they are fabrications.
Korea has a classic ends-justifies-the-means culture. Does anyone remember the ROK Navy captain who “discovered” one of Yi Sun-shin’s turtle ship cannon in Namhae? The guy even had the sac to project a month earlier that he was going to make a big discovery (as if you’d know in advance you were going to stumble upon such an artifact). The guy was a national hero for about three months–until someone decided a little investigation of the cannon was in order.
I wish someone could convey to the local protest culture the corniness of holding a candlelight vigil for every trivial occasion. Nobodys in a coma from a hate crime, or brain dead and about to be unplugged. Nobodys getting sentenced to death (an issue about which so-called liberal Koreans seem to have very little outrage).
There has to be a way to get Koreans to realize that sitting shivah on an issue like this is more likely to evoke laughter rather than sympathy.
i wonder if i can make much money selling candles at those protests?
JYCE brings up a good point. Koreans have really twisted out of shape the whole concept of a candlelight vigil. They seem to be using it as the ultimate threat to force someone or a company to their knees. It is comical when you think about it. It reminds me of the Han Blix letter threat from the movie “Team America.”
Protesters: Apologize for spilling the beans or else.
MBC: Or else what?
Protesters: Or else we’ll candle-light-vigil your ass.
Didn’t Hwang fess up and resign anyway? Seems he has more ethics than thought. At least more than his supporters.
I find it interesting how almost everyone seems to be willing to give Dr Hwang the benefit of the doubt. Okay. So, he is not a medical doctor, he is a vet. But he decided to do human stem cell cloning. That makes him a scientist who is responsible for leaning the rules. He did not do that, or so he says…
However, I have gotten ahold of a copy of his paper that was published in Science, and I find it intersting that it says:
“Donors were fully aware of the scope of this study and each signed an informed consent form.”
and it says this:
“Patients voluntarily donated oocytes and somatic cells for therapeutic cloning research and relevant applications but not for reproductive cloning. Although expenses for public transportation and injections administered by medical personnel could have been provided, none of the donors requested this, and therefore no financial
reimbursement in any form was paid (9).”
Now, if indeed, he was unaware of the Declaration in Helsinki, outlining the ethical rules guiding medical research using human subjects, why would he include these two points? These points are covered specifically in the Declaration in Helsinki, but were not covered in Korean eithical guidelines at the time that Science published his article.
I am just curious as to why he would feel the need to add these two disclaimers if he did not know about international ethical guidelines.
p.s. If anyone wants a copy of the original research papers, I have it saved on my computer in a PDF file.
Are those two items lies as well?
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Gillian,
Except for the Netizen fan clubs, I don’t believe anyone here is “giving Dr. Hwang the benefit of the doubt” in the sense of excusing his misconduct. Certainly that’s not something I’ve argued. All I’ve noted is that it’s possible the guy really is as cluelessly ignorant of the outside world’s standards and mores — of “common knowledge” — as everyone else here in Korea seems to be.
By the way, the second disclaimer is meaningless. The 1964 Helsinki Declaration doesn’t apply any standard prohibiting payment to research volunteers.
The real issue is one of coercion or the possibility of coercion of underlings (Basic Principle #10 of the Helsinki Declaration). Consent must be freely given. Can anyone who has worked in Korea under a horrible bastard overlord be surprised there is some question about Dr. Hwang or someone in the team coercing female graduate students to ante up in the team’s hour of need?
Shit, my own father had his graduate students at the University of Missouri rescuing an abandoned antique toilet from drunken derelicts sleeping rough in a back alley of Columbia, Missouri — so he could put the fine-looking toilet into a property he owned. These graduate students scrubbed dried, encrusted human feces off the porcelain to please my father! And he’s friendly and approachable; these guys come over for Thanksgiving dinner at our house now. Imagine what Korean graduate students would feel compelled to do for their leader.
When thinking about those statistics cited by the earlier poster Juan concerning the Helsinki Declaration (46% of Korean scientists never heard of it, 40% have but don’t know any content), I am reminded of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).
99.99% of Koreans will forcefully and emotionally agree that the SOFA is “unfair” yet when pressed, 99.98% (including all of the lawyers with whom I’ve discussed the issues) have no knowledge of any of the content of the treaty itself or of any of the facts that should be included in one’s evaluation of said “unfairness”. Luckily, that doesn’t stop them from protesting SOFA, and ignorance of the Helsinki Declaration probably doesn’t bother any Korean scientists — except where the rest of us find out about it. Then the embarassment is due to lost face.
Thanks to its long, long self-imposed isolation from the world, Korea is essentially a “moral Galapagos Island” with fantastic, curious examples of adaptations perfect for the local environment — but objectively bizarre and possibly fatal when contact is made with the rest of the world. (Galapagos Island is under a partial quarantine regime because of this very fact.)
Korea craves approval and acclaim, and in many respects deserves it. For the sake of other Korean scientists’ credibility and the chance for them to receive recognition when due, it will be crucial for Dr. Hwang to be destroyed in the ethics scandal (or at least have to spend a long time in the wilderness before being allowed back in).
Hwang’s head must get put out front on a stick to serve as an example to the others. “He’s suffered enough” is a vote in favor of the Galapagos Island quarantine.
I guess I am confused. According to the Declaration in Helsinki:
“8. Medical research is subject to ethical standards that promote respect for all
human beings and protect their health and rights. Some research populations are
vulnerable and need special protection. The particular needs of the economically
and medically disadvantaged must be recognized. Special attention is also
required for those who cannot give or refuse consent for themselves, for those
who may be subject to giving consent under duress, for those who will not
benefit personally from the research and for those for whom the research is
combined with care.”
Oh, and then there is this part:
“20. The subjects must be volunteers and informed participants in the research
project.”
Now, according to some of the news reports I have read, some of the “subects” had no idea that they were donating their ovum for this particular research project. According to them, they thought that their eggs were going to be frozen and used at some other date for those who were unable to convieve.
And then there is this part, just to back up what I just wrote:
“22. In any research on human beings, each potential subject must be adequately
informed of the aims, methods, sources of funding, any possible conflicts of
interest, institutional affiliations of the researcher, the anticipated benefits and
potential risks of the study and the discomfort it may entail. The subject should
be informed of the right to abstain from participation in the study or to withdraw
consent to participate at any time without reprisal. After ensuring that the subject
has understood the information, the physician should then obtain the subject’s
freely-given informed consent, preferably in writing. If the consent cannot be
obtained in writing, the non-written consent must be formally documented and
witnessed.”
And last, but certainly not least, there is the issue of the junior assistant:
“23. When obtaining informed consent for the research project the physician should
be particularly cautious if the subject is in a dependent relationship with the
physician or may consent under duress. In that case the informed consent should
be obtained by a well-informed physician who is not engaged in the investigation
and who is completely independent of this relationship.”
All I am saying is that considering Gerald Schatten’s name is also on this research papers, the likelihood that the Good Dr. Hwang did not know about these guidelines is zero-to-none. If nothing else, he would have been informed during the peer review, which all research papers have to be submitted for.
That’s all I am saying.
“Korea is essentially a “moral Galapagos Island” with fantastic, curious examples of adaptations perfect for the local environment — but objectively bizarre and possibly fatal when contact is made with the rest of the world.” Thanks Mr. Carr, that really made me laugh on a slowww Monday at work (hence the constant Marmot comments).
The only thing I want to add is that Dr. Hwang getting his ass handed to him on the ethics issue will be a net positive for Korea’s “national interest” because once Koreans do accept and become subject to the same standards and norms as the rest of the world — abandoning or tempering the “fantastic, curious adaptations” to the local environment in favor of the mythical global standard — they do real well.
Hyundai used to be a royal crapmobile. Now it’s a real good car and Hyundai is powering its way up the ranks of world-spanning carmakers.
Samsung and Goldstar (now LG) used to be cheap-ass electronic junk you bought because you couldn’t afford to get a good brand. Now they’re world-beaters.
Hyundai used to be a royal crapmobile. Now it’s a real good car and Hyundai is powering its way up the ranks of world-spanning carmakers.
Careful, Brendon, you’re going to make people’s heads explode. I’m not taking responsibility for cleaning up the mess in this echo chamber.
Careful, Brendon, you’re going to make people’s heads explode. I’m not taking responsibility for cleaning up the mess in this echo chamber.
I drive a Hyundai (well, a Kia Spectra). It’s a very good car and I’m glad to have bought it. Korean protectionism makes it easy for me to choose the Kia, in that the comparable Volkswagen Jetta which I might otherwise consider costs twice as much. But still the Kia has been a good car and I recommend it to people in the United States.
The obvious point is, the Korean companies most exposed to international competition are the strongest Korean companies. The ones protected from competition are the weakest. If biotech is a future strategic industry for the country, protecting Dr. Hwang from the criticism and opprobrium which would go with this kind of ethics scandal in other countries (and in Western countries, he would basically disappear for 10 years like Dr. Schatten) is not the way to go about reaching the “global standard”.
I have no idea how a lunitic like Dr. Hwang has a fan base?? Are Koreans this out of touch with reality?
I really cannot understand this Country anymore.
Do you people really understand how appauld rest of the world is with this utter lack of ethics?
What Dr. Hwang should be facing each and ever day is protests, not support.
It’s easy to understand why Dr. Hwang would have a fan base. Appearances are that he’s been doing amazing science, and Koreans crave the national recognition that goes with a world-beating scientist. If he’s for real, Dr. Hwang may be a hero.
(That is, if you don’t have a moral objection to the research. Like Baduk, I have “pro-life” misgivings about experiments with human embryonic stem cell material. I’m not a religious fundamentalist, but a human embryo is a person and that raises a lot of issues, especially where the person cannot give informed consent and the research necessarily involves deliberate extinction of the person.)
What Dr. Hwang needs, however, is reasoned scrutiny, peer review, and accountability. It may turn out that Korea cannot provide this. But we could be surprised and this will be a “teaching moment” for the upcoming generation of Korean scientists after Hwang.
Here’s my real worry: SNU owns 60% of Dr. Hwang’s discoveries, the hospital guy Roh the other 40%. According to my math, that leaves 0% for Dr. Hwang. And yet a lot of money has been sloshing around the guy, as the “fan clubs” and government support have poured in. Dr. Hwang has become almost a regent. And we know the perks of being King. I fear that examination of Dr. Hwang’s affairs may turn up evidence of embezzlement.
Then, things will turn ugly quickly and there will be consequences for that next generation after Dr. Hwang.
I’ve been telling everyone so for a long time. Lies are lies. And it scares me that the most potentially powerful technology the world has ever known has been developed from day 1 while ethical considerations have been swept under the rug. Read my blog entry.
http://metropolitician.blogs.com
Interesting developments keep happening concerning Dr.Hwang. According to Chosun daily, MBC is planning the second installment on “Hwang’s cloning controversy” and this time it is about “SUSPICION about Hwang’s results”. I am so glad that finally the truth will come out.
Lets wait and see baduk.
So MBC has the nads to do a follow up? This I gotta see. They’ll be boycotting evil “American” Michelin tires for decades.
China and N. Korea have nukes…
Japan has second to none naval power
in Asia…
South Korea has……….. Candle Light (vigils)
as the secret weapon…
Do not dare underestimate its power and
effectiveness!
Michelin is working hard to win back consumer support.
That was pretty funny Kushibo. Maybe Guide Michelin can give one star to some Korean shikdang to appease them (well, maybe more like one-millionth of a star…).