Dear President Yang,
I would like to inform you about the following: In the Nature issue of
14.1.2010 a report over wide-spread fraud in China, specifically with
regard to crystallographic data, has been published. When reading this
report I felt that it was too negative about the situation in China and also
that it only described the problem but did not discuss possible solutions.
In my opinion, you and your university have reacted to the incident of
fraud related to my journal in an exemplary manner. Therefore, I have
written a letter to Nature describing that some Chinese universities
actually are very actively combating fraud, not only by firing those who
were responsible for committing fraud but, perhaps even more
importantly, by starting systematic preventive measures. I think that in
this regard several Western universities could learn from the laudable
example set by your university. This letter has yesterday been published by
Nature (attached). I hope that you will find it to be of interest and that it
will help to paint a more positive and more realistic picture about the
current situation in China.
Yours sincerely
Prof. Martin C. Michel
Dept. Pharmacology & Pharmacotherapy
AMC, University of Amsterdam
Meibergdreef 15