In addition, they need to look at the activities of persons not associated with SNU. That in particular is one area that will need active involvement from the national government. They also need to beware of calls for the inquiry to be handed over to an outside body such as the prosecution. Experts are saying that if the committee gets the opportunity to pursue every detail of notes from the experiments and other related documentation, arriving at the fact of the case will not be impossible. It is important that Korean science show that is capable of solving such problems. Questions that just cannot be answered and any signs of illegality can be looked at later by the prosecution. Finally, the committee must prevent any attempts to link the inquiry to anything unrelated to the essence of the issue at hand, such as redoing the stem cell experiment. The key issue is whether the article as based on fabrications and whether the results of the research were exaggerated. Whether Hwang's researchers possess the technology to do what they say they can do is a question for later. What responsibility government officials like Cheong Wa Dae aide for science and technology policy Park Gi Yeong have to bear is something that also must be examined. Hwang's researchers were receiving a massive amount of government funding, so there needs to be answers to questions such as whether officials were thorough in verifying the authenticity of the research, whether they learned about the fabrications and yet remained silent, and if perhaps they cooperated in a cover-up. The first step in preventing a reoccurrence of something similar will be seeing who needs to be held responsible. The Hankyoreh, 19 December 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
