At last, Dr. Obokata spoke before the media
for two and a half hours. She said she has succeeded with the STAP cell experiment more
than 200 times and had no malicious intent in producing data. She has confirmed
that one other person succeeded in reproducing STAP cell but she didn’t name
the person.
Why that person does not come forward and
tell Riken and the world about the successful result? Why Dr. Sasai is the only person who’s been
defending Dr. Obokata? What’s happening to
the rest of her colleagues and co-authors of the STAP papers? That’s a mystery.
I hope to find out later.
This afternoon, I talked with a female
medical doctor about this issue. She told
me that Science communities in Japan are men’s world, and Riken is notorious in
producing high suicide rates. Wow. I didn’t know that. But generally it’s tough for women to head a
team of men. I say this out of my
experience.
This evening, Asahi Shimbun reported that Riken
agreed to set up a committee to guide their researchers so that future
misconducts would be avoided. The
government has been on Riken’s back on this issue. Good for them.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/04/09/national/obokata-says-stap-cell-discovery-not-fabrication-claims-riken-dissuaded-her-from-giving-her-side-of-story-earlier/
