By David Prentice

David Prentice

Editor’s note. This appeared on Dr. Prentice’s blog at http://www.frcblog.com/2010/12/cloning-frauds-conviction-upheld-but-not-for-fraud

A South Korean appeals court upheld the conviction of Hwang Woo-suk on embezzlement based on faked research and violating bioethics laws. The court reduced his sentence to 18 months (suspended for two years), for the embezzlement charge and threw out the fraud charge.

In 2004 and 2005, Hwang published papers in the journal Science claiming that he had created the first cloned human embryos, and obtained embryonic stem cells from the clones. In late 2005, it was found that Hwang had faked the results.

He was indicted on fraud and embezzlement charges.

In October 2009 he was convicted of embezzling $719,000 in research funds and illegally buying human eggs.

Despite the fraud and problems associated with cloning, there are scientists and politicians who still want human clones.