The Hwang Affair
The LA Times has published some of the uglier details in South Korean Cloning Scandal Takes Toll on Whistle-Blowers*. Here are some excerpts:

South Korea's MBC Television, which broke the story on the investigative program "PD Notebook," was beset by protests from viewers and advertisers outraged by the affront to a national hero. The broadcaster's stock price crashed, and the program was taken off the air for two weeks.

It was nasty stuff. Enraged Hwang supporters distributed a photograph on the Internet of the program's producer, Han Hak Soo, his wife and their 4-year-old child.

"Let's kill those three!" read one message accompanying the photograph.

Concerned, MBC's management tried to send him to Europe for a three-month training program to place him out of harm's way. Then, when Han was preparing to leave, he was banned from leaving the country because of a lawsuit filed against him.

"It was as though we had brought down a sacred cow in South Korea, and people were really angry," said Choi Seung Ho, an MBC executive producer....

Although overwhelming evidence has emerged that Hwang fabricated his most acclaimed results, the scientist still has a core of believers.

On Feb. 4, one crushed fan immolated himself in Seoul in front of a statue of Yi Sun Shin, a 16th century war hero to whom many South Koreans today are comparing Hwang. The man, in his 50s, had been seen scattering pamphlets calling on Hwang to continue his research. A few hours after the suicide, about 2,000 Hwang supporters marched nearby in frigid darkness carrying candles and waving South Korean flags.

Some supporters argue that even if Hwang lied, the South Korean media shouldn't have exposed him because it will put the country at a disadvantage with the United States in the competitive biotech industry.

"You're America's dog," fumed a Hwang loyalist in an angry posting on MBC's online bulletin board. "Those who buried the greatest scientist in the history of the Korean people will incur the wrath of the heavens."

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