Box office success from questionable science

 

It was inevitable!

It had to happen!

Nature reports that a film, called The Whistleblower,  has been made, based on the Woo Suk Hwang scandal in South Korea, concerning the creation of embryonic stem cells by cloning. The film stars top actors. 

The disputed papers were published in a famous scientific journal, Science, and subsequently retracted. 

The film apparently paints a sympathetic portrait of Hwang as a man with human frailties, like the rest of us.

The real whistleblower would seem not to have been very pleased with this film because, according to the report, “his own contributions and those of online bloggers were credited to the reporter” (in the film).

The Nature report draws attention to the fact that Nature itself was the first to report that Hwang had procured the eggs for his experiments unethically.

Of course, there is another film in the (potential) making, this time about a paper published in  another famous scientific journal, and which had even more tragic consequences.  

I wonder when such a film will be made.