By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter



Professor Hwang Woo-suk lies in bed at Seoul National University Hospital in Seoul, Wednesday. /Yonhap


MBC-TV said Wednesday it has put weekly news magazine ``PD Notebook’’ on hold indefinitely, three days after the broadcaster apologized for the use of threats in the process of investigating Prof. Hwang Woo-suk’s stem cell cloning research.
The second largest broadcaster in South Korea also said that it suspended the two program directors Han Hak-soo and Choi Seung-ho for violating journalistic ethics.

In a press conference last week, the two program directors claimed that Hwang’s cloned embryonic human stem cells might not be authentic, saying that they were informed of the fact by former staff members of the Seoul National University professor.

On Sunday, however, one of the junior staffers, Kim Sun-jong, refuted the claim during an interview with an all-news cable channel YTN, saying that he was coerced and his remarks were distorted in the process.

MBC aired a statement of apology ahead of its prime-time news show on Sunday evening, but couldn’t stop the public’s hostility. All of 12 advertisement sponsors had pulled out from ``PD Notebook,’’ and the Foundation of Broadcast Culture, the largest shareholder of MBC, held an emergency board meeting on Monday where the members allegedly grilled MBC president Choi Moon-soon.

Meanwhile, Hwang was hospitalized Wednesday morning at Seoul National University hospital.

The hospital’s spokesperson Sung Myung-hoon said that Hwang will be cared for about one week as he has been suffering from insomnia, a stomach ulcer from extreme fatigue and stress. Sung also said that Hwang had lost a considerable amount of weight recently.

Hwang, a 52-year-old professor, gained international fame by cloning human embryos for the first time in the world, which may eventually lead to cures for critical diseases such as Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

But since last month, he has been blamed for lying about egg donations collected from his junior staff members during the breakthrough research.

The scandal turned for the worse as the MBC questioned the authenticity of Hwang’s work last week.

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr