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Senior RIKEN Scientist Involved In Stem Cell Scandal Commits Suicide
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Yoshiki Sasai, a noted stem cell scientist at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe, Japan, who co-authored two controversial and later retracted papers that reported a simple way of reprogramming mature cells, was confirmed dead this morning, an apparent suicide. Local media reported he was found hanging from a stairway railing in the RIKEN complex in Kobe. Sasai was rushed to a nearby hospital but efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. He reportedly left a suicide note, but it has not been made public."
Because nobody could have possibly wanted this guy dead. Right? Guys?
Maybe they can use Stem Cells to revive him. /sarc
The article makes it seem like the retracted Nature articles were why he committed suicide (or a major contributor to it).. but they weren't really his fault. Haruko Obokata was the lead researcher on those, and also the person responsible for fabricating the research results. Sure, his name was on it as a co-author, but that sounds more like the result of office politics than actually believing what she was publishing. Even his employer seemed like they held him in high regard after the scandal broke.
Sucks to see a man driven to suicide by something he didn't do.
This happens right when we have a lost Malaysian plane crash, killing 30 HIV researchers and we have a out-of-control ebola outbreak in Liberia with the CDC smuggling infected patients into the homeland and curing them with some "secret sauce" experimental treatment?
This has Shoko Asahara's sticky fingerprints all over it.
Especially in a country like Japan where suicide is a huge problem, the note's contents will never be released.
Reporting on suicide has serious ethical consequences, and revealing the contents of the note means others will see suicide as a valid way to bring their ideas, grievances, or innocence to public light.
In most cases suicides are not reported, and even if they are newsworthy, generally the suicide nature is downplayed as much as possible.
It's one of those really sucky problems that's hard to deal with. Few really realize how much of a problem it is, but bringing awareness often makes it worse. One of the many things insidious about mental illness.
Please help metamoderate.
My heart goes out to his relatives. People get so caught up in their public persona, they often forget that they could lead a fantastic life in obscurity after a major failure like this. I live in obscurity every day! It's great!
Last week I had a cousin make an attempt with a bunch of pills. Rather than hospitalize him, the police took him to jail for possession where he promptly finished the job with a belt. I didn't know him really well so I'm not all torn up but some in my family are. This is an entirely different thing that just having a relative die. It's a different emotion. What did we miss? What could we have done? Is it my fault because I didn't hang out with the guy enough and help him get on a better path?
Logically, I know it's all nonsense. The guy made his own choice, but I certainly feel for his immediate family. They're obviously taking it hard.
Given that he also had rather recently checked into a mental facility (for stress), it is obvious that not everything was ok (the article says that he had tried to resign in March, but the request was denied and he checked into a hospital for a month). The Japanese media had put more pressure/blame on him in the past week, so this is not really surprising that this might have led him to suicide.
You don't understand Asian culture, or Japanese culture in particular.
When one is "responsible" for something, even if one wasn't directly involved with the failure, the failure is attributed to EVERYONE responsible and is a major loss of "Face". It's especially bad in this case since it wasn't just an error, it was a planned deception by the lead researcher. So every project this person is associated with will now be "tainted"... (yeah, a bit different than Western culture) so pretty much his career would not advance any more.
Sure, suicide is a bit extreme, but in Japanese culture, as opposed to other Asian cultures, it's more common.
And put his clone on trial.
And publish or perish has an even deeper meaning in many Asian countries.
Both the pressure to release things before they are fully proven.
And the pressure to always succeed no matter the costs.
The lack of critiques by junior scientists involved in the institutions and labs involved is another cause of these distorted results.
One of the first thing scientists from Asian countries learn when they work in US labs is that they are expected to critique and question senior scientists, which is regarded as Not Done in their original countries.
(this is an observation based on personal experiences)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If only we had some stem cells, we might have saved him!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If only Obama could do this 100s of millions of humans would not be killed to achieve his ambitions of world domination.
Yet, if only.
Of Samurai stem-cell research!