I'm surprised after all these year, the media still doesn't really understand how academic science is done and reported.  This opinion reads as if the scientists in this study intentionally tried to deceive the public.  If they wanted to get "as big a bang as possible" why would they announce after the fact, that they didn't need c-myc after all?  This opinion makes no sense.  It smacks of childish impatience and convinces me that its author is looking for a knee-jerk response instead of communicating the actual science involved in the study.  It is hard enough for us to even get these experiments to work, let along interpret the results.  It's much harder for us to explain our results and their ramifications to the public.  Add to that the workings of publication and peer review funding and John Q. Public is totally lost.  No wonder they lose faith in us when they read this kind of reporting.

Why the kvetching? Two weeks? A real lifetime, right? Sounds to me like some "journalist" is throwing a little hissey fit because she or her buddies didn't get it all on the first try. Grow up, nobody owes the media a dammed thing, especially those scientists who made this discovery. Who do you think you are, the thought police?

Sharon, I don't feel deceived at all.  Dr. Yamanaka and his colleagues basically said all this right in the original Cell paper, on page 15 of the draft I'm looking at: "We have recently found that iPS cells can be generated without Myc retroviruses, albeit wth lower efficiency." When I asked Yamanaka about this, he said he couldn't say any more because the follow-up paper was under review, as I noted on this page:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21886974/page/2/

It's often the case that researchers have follow-up results that couldn't quite make it into the original paper, and because of the embargo rules for peer-reviewed journals, they can't discuss those as freely with members of the press (like you and me).

To pinkpanther87413: All of us researchers encourage you to try to cure it. However, I agree that there is a lack of interest in a cure. Those of us that think a vaccine is not out of the question have been surprised at the disinterest of our research proposals to Big Pharma as well as our own NIH.

It seems clear to me that some facts were withheld due to the rabid careless reporting by the media who would have generated unwarranted concern over the research.

NO PROFIT IN A CURE PLAIN AND SIMPLE IF IT WERE SO WITH THE AMOUNT WE SPEND ON CANCER IT TO WOULD BE CURED BUT MORE MONEY IN TREATMENT AND THAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE!!!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/25/eveningnews/main2400032.shtml

The fact is that only 1 in 10 proposals to NCI are funded. The only way to get funded is to produce publishable results. The only way to get your results published is to make your research as attractive as possible. The lack of funding also means that while a researcher may be on the verge of a discovery, if the results are not published in a good journal (Nature rejects 95% of articles submitted) when it comes time to review their grant application, it will probably be rejected.

Publish or Perish.