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Scientific Ethics 5(1): 3-5, 2010 |
OPEN LETTER |
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http://im1.biz |
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© Truthfinding
Cyberpress |
TRUTH VERSUS
FALSE INFORMATION |
Complaint against Nature’s Cherry-Picking against Truth And
Discrimination against
Truth-Seeking Scientists
Shi V. Liu
Eagle Institute of
Molecular Medicine
Apex,
NC 27502, USA
Corresponding
with SVL8PA@gmail.com
(Received 2010-05-26; revised 2010-06-07; accepted 2010-06-07;
published
2009-06-07*)
HIGHLIGHT
Published here
is an Open Letter that has been mailed to the CEO of Macmillan by registered
mail with return receipt. Let us watch how
Macmillan will hamdle this complaint this time.
ABSTRACT
Macmillan was
brought to court last year because of the “4D” actions committed by its leading
journal Nature (see legal document 09CY006755 filed at the Superior Court of
Wake County, North Carolina, USA).
However, that lawsuit was dismissed as a result of arguments made by the
legal team for the Macmillan. Subsequently,
Nature and other journals of
the Nature Publication Group have become even more reckless and insolent in
publishing flawed and even fraud research on the so-called induced pluripotent
stem cells (iPSCs) that have been hyped as “ethical” and “safe” replacements
for embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Now,
almost every bogus claim made for iPSCs and iPS reprogramming has been
invalidated by further researches and thus essentially confirmed Liu’s
pioneering discoveries on the true nature of iPSCs and iPS reprogramming. But none of these confirmatory studies cited
Liu’s original discoveries even though the whole iPS research field should know
very well Liu’s consistent opinions because these candid opinions have even
irritated many iPS researchers. More
seriously, Nature and other top
journals which have sold many invalid iPS discoveries and rejected all of Liu’s
submissions on iPS research now still refuse to publish Liu’s timely and sharp
observations on the progress of iPS research and protected those credit-robbery
behaviors. This Open Letter shows the
most recent cases and serves as a tip of iceberg for a huge misconduct
committed by a flagship journal in the world of scientific publishing.
KEY
WORDS
Stem cell, iPSC, ESC,
Reprogramming,, Misrepresentation, Hype, Rejection, Neglect, Citation, Credit,
Robbery, Misconduct, Lawsuit, 4D actions, Macmillan, Nature, NPG, Publishing,
Cheating, Freedom
From:
Shi V. Liu MD PhD
Eagle Institute of Molecular
Medicine
June 7, 2010
To:
Annette Thomas
CEO of Macmillan
Subject: A Formal Complaint against Nature’s Cherry-Picking against Truth and Discrimination against
Truth-Seeking Scientists
Dear Ms. Thomas,
As you may recall, your company
was brought into a lawsuit when Nature
committed “4D” actions (see legal document 09CY006755 filed at the Superior
Court of Wake County, North Carolina, USA).
Although that lawsuit was ended without much reputation damage to your
company it nevertheless consumed your company some significant fees.
However, it seemed that those
individuals at Nature who have
damaged the reputation of your company have not learnt any real lesson from
that past experience. Instead, they have
become more reckless and insolent by committing more serious misconduct.
For example, after the legal
setback, Nature even committed a
series of retrospective deletions of my previous comments offering scientific
insights on some very controversial issues such as the validity of the various
claims made for the iPSCs (induced pluripotent stem cells) and iPS
reprogramming. By now, Nature has essentially deprived me of my
freedom of speech and even the right to express scientific opinions. It not only systematically discriminates
against my formal submissions of scientific manuscripts but also consistently
prevents me from posting online comments.
Based on facts, it now can been
seen very clearly that over the past three years Nature has played a leading role in building up a huge
misrepresentation that is unprecedented in scientific history. It has spread all over the world an illusion
that some scientists can reverse the biological clock and thus directly turn
ANY (even terminally) differentiated adult cells back to undifferentiated
embryonic cells that are “indistinguishable” from embryonic stem cells
(ESCs). However, those iPSCs are merely
some incorrectly programmed stem cells and the iPS reprogramming is merely a
neoplastic transformation that turns pre-existing stem cells into man-made
cancer stem cells (mmCSCs).
Nature’s initial rejections of my above deep insight and present
publishing of “new discoveries” that essentially confirmed some of my earlier
discoveries but still playing an entirely wrong tune of “ethical” and “safe”
replacement of ESCs by iPSCs represent its lack of scientific judgment and
ethical attitude. Its later neglect of my submissions criticizing those
residual mistakes and outright credit robbery contained in its repeated
“discoveries” with no citation of my original discoveries just reflected the
unscientific and also unethical nature of Nature. Even though this reflection might be some
actions of a few editors, the outcome has disgraced the entire Nature magazine in the eyes of the
scientific community.
Thus, when the politically
motivated promotion of iPSCs as “ethical” and “safe” replacements for ESCs is
over, Nature will be likely
remembered in scientific history as a journal aggressively suppressing truth
and spreading misrepresentations despite having previously been informed on the
actual truth. It will be known to the
whole world as the strongest reverse “cherry-picking” magazine – a magazine
that selectively eliminates submissions containing truthful information and
instead keeps publishing manuscripts filled with misunderstandings and
misrepresentations.
Now, a very recent submission
of mine is being neglected by Nature. The submitted manuscript is entitled “Partial recognition of incorrectly
programmed stem cells (iPSCs) by Nature”. It was received by Nature and recorded as Manuscript No. 2010-05-06653. This manuscript congratulated the partial
recognition of the incorrect programming of iPSCs by the Nature publication and pointed out more misunderstandings contained
in that publication. By all standards
this manuscript is a very worthy Communications Arising and should be
published without any delay.
To make sure that Nature will not neglect this important
submission I sent Editor-in-chief Phillip Campbell and publishing executive
editor Maxine Clarke an email, urging them to pay attention to this submission
and get involved in making a decision on it.
However, within 2 hours of my emailing, the manuscript was taken out
from the manuscript tracking system without any notice. My email to these two editors asking for a
reason has not been responded yet after two days.
Besides Nature some other journals within the Nature Publishing Group (NGP)
of your company have also engaged in the rejection of truth and then allowing
credit robbery relating my insightful discoveries on iPSCs and iPS
reprogramming. The most recent such
incidences can be represented by the rejection of my Correspondence “A confirmation of my earlier conclusions on
iPS reprogramming and iPSCs” (NBT-L24081) by Nature Biotechnology on the ground of no sufficient general
interest even though this journal is continuing publishing papers on this very
topic. As a matter of fact, while I was
protesting that rejection, Nature
Biotechnology published another “discovery” which followed by published
research protocol and reached a same conclusion contained in many of my
publications on iPSCs including a peer-reviewed world-first critical review on
iPSCs published in Stem Cells and
Development. Thus, I submitted
another Correspondence “Another
confirmation of my earlier discoveries on iPSCs and iPS reprogramming”
(NBT-L24133) to Nature Biotechnology. I requested Nature Biotechnology to give me an answer to my protest to the
rejection of NBT-L24081 and wish it will quickly publish both
Correspondences. However, so far I have
not received any response.
Thus, I must report these
severe incidents to you and also inform the whole world by publishing this
letter as an Open Letter. I wish that
you will establish a committee to formally investigate these incidents and a
series of related prior incidents. I
demand that you will request to Nature
and Nature Biotechnology to quickly
publish my above submitted manuscripts.
Otherwise, I will hold you and the MacMillan Company also responsible
for suppressing truth and disseminating misrepresentations while disregarding
basic human rights such as the freedom of speech and suppressing truthful
information along with discriminating against the specific individual wishing
to express this information.
In closing, however, I would
like to emphasize that there is even more to this incident than the severe
discrimination by Nature against my
person. It is the key point of shared responsibility towards this generation
and the next one. In present times when humankind is still desperately seeking
to defeat cancer disease, you, as a publisher, on the contrary, keep allowing
the dissemination of data on pluripotent stem cells engineered as a result of
the introduction/activation of cancer-promoting genes and even the knock-out of
tumor suppressor genes (!) - and therefore not surprisingly already known to be
causing tumors in experimental animals-, yet without allowing for equivalent
critiques cautioning against their predictable high risks on the pages of your
journals. In other words and briefly, you are actively promoting the
development of man-made cancer stem cells and their planned introduction into
human individuals! If you will maintain this irresponsible attitude, it is
predictable that a worst-case scenario for such engineered stem cells, in
particular iPS, will soon unfold, ultimately yielding a disaster surpassing by
far last year’s warning by James M. Wilson in Science (vol. 324, pp. 727-728) and comparable in its apocalyptic
dimensions to the recent subprime/Lehman Brothers financial catastrophe and the
still ongoing devastating BP oil spill on the Gulf Coast. Can you therefore
proceed unchecked as before despite such plausible scenario? If so, the civil
society will certainly have to hold you responsible as one of the primary
culprits in the propagation of a technology that could turn out to be a major
crime against humanity.
Sincerely,
Shi V. Liu MD PhD
PS
While waiting for the reviewing
and revision of this Letter by my scientific and legal friends, I noticed a
Press release from a recent international scientific symposium “stem
cells in biology and disease” held in Lisbon, Portugal (http://www.estools.eu/Lisbon):
Induced pluripotent stem cells do not
fully replace embryonic stem cells as disease models
A study
from ESTOOLS partner Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Children’s Hospital
in Boston has shed new light on the properties of induced pluripotent stem
cells (iPS cells), reporting evidence that they may not be able to replace
embryonic stem cells in some research and medical applications. The
results of the study will be presented in Lisbon at the International Symposium
“Stem Cells in Biology and Disease” during the workshop "Do we still need
human embryonic stem cells"
See full text of the press release on this page:
http://www.estools.eu/estools/news/latest/Press-release-17-May-2010
This
press release was based on a very recent research paper “"Differential
modeling of Fragile X syndrome by human embryonic stem cells and induced
pluripotent stem cells" by Achia Urbach, Ori Bar-Nur, George Q. Daley and
Nissim Benvenisty which appeared in Cell
Stem Cell (6: 407-411) on May 7, 2010.
(http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(10)00160-8)
This “new discovery” actually
more convincingly confirmed by old discovery: iPSCs are distinct from ESCs (as
accepted by the mainstream now) because they are man-made cancer cells (still
disliked by the mainstream). Thus,
hyping iPSCs as “ethical” and “safe” replacements for ESCs represents a severe
misrepresentation and even an intentional misconduct.