#59 Tuesday, January 3, 2006  - ON HWANG WU SUK, AND THE COMING STORM



In the past few weeks, Korean scientist Hwang Wu Suk has been attacked by literally hundreds of newspaper articles, editorials, and TV programs.  



He has lost his professorship, his job, his funding, his reputation, and his health.



He may even be sent to jail.



For lying.



I wish I could say, he was completely innocent: that he was telling the truth, that he accomplished everything he said he did.



But I cannot.



What actually happened?



Hwang Wu Suk was a veterinarian who cloned a dog, and found that maybe there was something incredible he could do to help the world.



Could he use his skills to make stem cells that matched the patients from which they were drawn: personalized medicine?



From his research, a way might be found to help the lame walk, and the blind see again-what a miracle, what an amazing gift that would be. 



South Korea was right to support the research which may one to lead to cures for millions of suffering people. Their generosity was not a mistake; every Korean should take enormous pride that they saw the hope in the research.



What went wrong?



Remember Mark Twain, author of TOM SAWYER, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, JOAN OF ARC, INNOCENTS ABROAD, and many more books which will live forever? 



People forget Mark Twain went broke-- because he believed in the typewriter. He invested every dollar he had, going deep in debt for a company trying to invent the typewriter. But the company failed, and Mark Twain lost everything.



History would prove him right; people no longer are stuck with laborious penmanship. The typewriter went on to become electrified (I remember yet how amazing that was, to lightly tap the keys instead of pounding!) And now the keyboard from the typewriter is attached to a little something called a computer.



But the company's approach to the new invention failed by some technical detail. At an advanced age, a suddenly impoverished Twain had to go on an exhausting world-wide lecture tour and work extremely hard, to get out of debt.



Hwang Wu Suk and his co-workers labored hard to make Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) a practical and usable tool; not even his most vociferous detractor can deny that. 



But achieving SCNT, stem cell lines specific to the individual from whom they were made-- this will be no easy task. It will doubtless take years, and the combined efforts of many nations' scientists. No individual, however talented, can do it all.



But for a little while, it seemed that Hwang Wu Suk had done just that: found a simple way to make the patient-specific stem cells, and answer the prayers of millions.



It was not true.



The experiments with did not turn out the way he wanted.



What he should have done (and it seems so simple, now, with 20/20 hindsight) was to just admit he had not succeeded yet. 



All science advances by fits and starts, near-misses, errors, false steps before real. There will be mistakes and missteps as we work toward a cure for so many diseases and disabilities: every one of which has been officially termed "chronic"-- incurable.



The great inventor Thomas Edison needed 2,000 tries just to get the right filament for his light bulb. Someone once asked him, did he not feel bad to have failed 2,000 times? No, he answered: he had learned two thousand ways not to make a light bulb.



Perhaps Hwang Wu Suk got caught up in the momentum of the search, feeling that if he could only keep the money coming in, he would find a way to fix what was not working; he could succeed before his results were looked at too closely, in the inevitable peer review scrutiny, as fellow scientists around the world tried to replicate his work. 



He fell into the trap.



From everything I understand, he manipulated the results of his experiments, to make it seem he had succeeded, when he had not.



He lied. And now he is paying a terrible price.



We too will pay a price, we who support the research. The opposition is practically jumping up and down in their excitement; and you may be sure, at the upcoming hearings on stem cell research, the enemies of science will quote articles attacking Hwang Wu Suk at least as many times as they mention their false list of miracle cures for adult stem cells. 



Hwang Wu Suk has made our job harder. We now face a very real possibility that Senator Sam Brownback(R-KS)'s anti-SCNT law will pass: wavering Senators may lose their courage, and become the first American Senate ever to criminalize medical research. 



The opposition knows all too well how to capitalize on this. They have their communications networks all set up, the messages are flying. Behind the scenes, we can be sure they are practicing their little speech-lets, sound bites for TV, composing devastating language to attack the research once again.



It was, after all, Sam Brownback's anti-science campaign that made him a Presidential candidate. Before he began attacking SCNT, who even knew his name? But when he trumpeted his anti-cloning noises, every paper in America printed him.



Endlessly attacking research for cure gave Brownback name recognition, putting his name in the papers and on television-millions of dollars' worth of free advertising.   



Attacking the hopes and dreams of millions of suffering Americans has been very good indeed for kindly Senator Sam.



In this wintry political climate, when the White House, Congress, Senate, and the Supreme Court are all controlled by conservatives, the Stem Cell Research Expansion Act  (HR 810, Castle-DeGette) will shortly be considered.



The Stem Cell Research Expansion Act has no SCNT funding; it modestly expands the number of stem cell lines eligible for federal funding.  It passed the House of Representatives already, and is waiting for a Senate vote.



What I greatly fear is this: the Senate may allow HR 810's small advance- and pass Sam Brownback's bill-- criminalizing SCNT. 



Under Brownback's legislation, any doctor, scientist, patient, or parent who has anything to do with SCNT will be sent to jail for ten years, and fined one million dollars.  



This must not happen. SCNT is a great scientific tool; we must not let it be banned.



If SCNT is criminalized in America, embryonic research will go slowly, slowly. The new California stem cell research program will be unable to fund it.



Chances are, old age will claim me before my son fulfills the great prophesy of Christopher Reeve, to "stand up from (his) wheelchair, and walk away from (it) forever".



So what does this add up to? 



We friends of stem cell research will have to work more hours in the months ahead.



But hard work has not frightened us before; that was the price of every step accomplished by the new force of patient advocates: families fighting for their loved ones by uniting with doctors, scientists and researchers across the land.



Want an example? Look at CAMR, the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research-today, they are the international leaders of hope through cure research.



Now, when reporters quote the opposition's trash-talk, they also have a go-to group for the other side; every reporter in Washington knows CAMR, among whose members are such solid folks as the American Medical Association.



But only a few years ago, CAMR was a couple of friends in an office, going up against incredible odds. 



Fortunately, people like Tim Leshan, Larry Soler, Michael Manganiello, Tricia Brooks, Dan Perry and Sean Tipton did not seem to understand they had no chance against a heavily financed opposition. 



Heroes of hard work, they sacrificed sleep and comfort, and beat back the anti-science coalitions again and again and again and again.



There is another example: not so happy, but important.



Imagine being a mother who finds out that both she and her children had AIDS- which they got through hospital blood transfusions.



This unbelievable unfairness happened to Elizabether Glazer. But far from giving up, retreating in shock and exhaustion, she worked with her friend, Susan DeLaurentis, to set up the Elizabeth Glazer HIV/AIDS Foundation, and fight for cure.



Ms. Glazer died, but her work lives on. The research she fought for has advanced, saving many lives, though there is still no cure.



And her friend, Susan DeLaurentis, is now the Director of the Alliance for Stem Cell Research. I have the honor to work with her. 



She does not know what giving up means.



The work will be done.



And one thing more.



Hwang Wu Suk lied about his results, and that was 100% wrong. 



South Korea punished him harshly, and was right to do so.



For unlike politicians, who can lie and lie and never be penalized, scientists must hold to a higher standard. Science can only advance through verifiable, honest, research. 



But I still like Hwang Wu Suk. Though I only met him once, at a conference, I consider him a friend, and I don't care who knows it.



Because while the Brownbacks of this world gain political advancement by attacking research, Hwang Wu Suk was trying to find a way to bring healing to the incurably ill.



Through his research, Hwang Wu Suk was trying to help my paralyzed son.



My hope for him, for Hwang Wu-Suk now, is that he will be allowed to return to science: to make amends through work and public service; taking smaller, verifiable steps, doing good for the rest of his scientific life. 



In this way, he can repay his country, and live up to the promises he made.



Plain, honest work is the only answer. That is how Hwang Wu Suk can make things right--



And how we who support stem cell research will pull through the coming storm.



Don Reed  -  www.stemcellbattles.com






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