Panel Finds Flawed Data in a Major Stem Cell Report

An inquiry panel has found what it called "significantly flawed" data in a major stem cell paper published in Nature in 2002.

The article, which claimed stem cells isolated from an adult could change into all the major tissue types of the body, was seized on by opponents of abortion as showing that embryonic stem cell research was unnecessary since adult stem cells could provide all the predicted benefits.

The lead author of the article, Catherine Verfaillie, said yesterday that she had sent a letter to Nature stating that the flawed data should not be relied on but that they did not affect the article’s conclusions. She said the journal was resubmitting the article to the original referees for them to make their own assessment.

Problems with the article were first reported this month by New Scientist. Two writers for that magazine, Peter Aldhous and Eugenie Samuel Reich, noticed last year that a set of graphs in the Nature article was the same as that in an article by Dr. Verfaillie published in a different journal but ascribed to different...