Japan’s biggest daily newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, made international news when it reported a few days ago that iPS cells had been transplanted into human patients by Hisashi Moriguchi.
In this morning’s paper, Yomiuri Shimbun issued a painful front page admission (happily reported by competing paper The Asahi Shimbun) of publishing false information about the alleged transplants, which most folks now believe never took place.
The apology from the paper, with a massive circulation of 10 million, is appropriate, but their earlier reporting on this case was just terrible. Facts were not confirmed. The story was sensationalized on the front page of their paper.
Managing editor of Yomiuri, Yoshimitsu Ohashi, wrote “We must honestly reflect on the shoddy reporting on our part” and an in-house investigation will probe what went wrong.
Remarkably, Moriguchi, who talked to reporters yesterday in New York, still said he did nothing wrong and that the “facts” were correct. Reportedly “He said he would give his side of the story after consulting with those involved in the research.”
So based on his claim, should we believe the results? I mean they were published in 09 in his earlier papers. Are those journals doing probes as well and deciding whether to retract his manuscript? In addition, has his home institution confirmed or denied anything about the trials?