Haruko Obokata wrote a book about the STAP cell scandal telling it from her perspective.
Fom all accounts I’ve seen, she has sought in her writings to shift the blame away from herself. She even claimed she was framed by other scientists. To say I’m skeptical would be an understatement.
Will this book have any impact? Many scientists thought it would make a splash and then fade away.
Not so, at least so far.
At present Obokata’s book is the #1 best-selling book on all of Amazon Japan, which is a huge deal. A hat tip to Dr. Robert Geller for the heads up on this.
Clearly in Japan a very large number of people are buying this book, which both raises the possibility that it could be influential on public opinion there and that she could profit handsomely from its sales. Her publisher apparently has given her a $50,000 USD equivalent advance, but if the book sells beyond expectations she could get even more.
Might it be translated into English?
Do people believe the claims in the book? The reviews on Amazon Japan are very mixed with many one-star reviews with harsh words and overall not a great rating, but there are five-star reviews too.
I belongs to the Researcher Community in Japan.
We analyze “That Day”, and judge that it is Obokata’s lying book.
“Do people believe the claims in the book? ”
Our Scientists…don’t believe her at all, but no-scientists try to convince her.
The reviews on Amazon Japan are those made by them and Obokata’s Fun.
I’d be very interested in reading this book… but like a lot of others. .. I’ll have to wait for the translation. I do think that obokata was very much to blame… but to play devil’s advocate a tad… I also think there were others who had responsibility but escaped blame. I will name no names!
If I remember well the 2 original Nature papers, there was a point on which the STAP stem cells were supposed to be different from ESCs (ominpotency vs pluripotency, about repopulated trophoblast tissue if I remember well, those green pictures of placenta). Those data could not have been produced if it was “just” a contamination (voluntary or not) with ESCs. My question: Who performed those experiments?
This is the world we live in I guess. It looks like the meek really have inherited the Earth.
Perhaps Obokata has written something profound that I will find out about when I learn to read Japanese. On the other hand, there are many hugely popular and influential books that are also transparent nonsense. Popularity is about appealing to what this or that mushy-headed group wants to believe, ask any Presidential Candidate, ask the Prime Minister of Canada! If the royalties don’t make Obokata independently wealthy, she might consider a future in politics.
This is ridiculous. She just wants to be in the spotlight, no matter at what cost. She probably never gave a damn about science – all that mattered was the attention she was getting.