そして今，肝臓畑にいる．何故か？大學でも野球部に入ったからである．オダビンの「肝臓内科」にいたヤクザな野球部先輩達が「成績の悪い奴は第一内科に来い．俺達が面倒見てやる」と云ってくれたからである．そして市田隆文萬年野球少年と必然的な再会を果たし，今年，日本肝臓學會に野球部を創設することになった．

　しかし総合的には彼女の葉書は合格點だった．切手に含蓄があったからである．

「（市田隆文がのどグロのシャブシャブと〆張鶴のぬる燗で身体を暖めながら独り言！）東京大学野球部医学科主将三代選手と日本肝臓学会演題選定委員会の席で、学会に合わせて野球大会でもやりたいですね、の一言でその場の宴席が盛り上がり（そうです、演題選定委員会では、開催教室の地元での慰労会があるんです。）、会長の辻孝夫教授がトップダウンで決定した。この事実は永遠に残る。その後の三代コミッショナー兼オーガナイザー兼現役捕手の活躍は御承知の通りで、さらに今回飲めば飲むほど文章に活が入り、アブサンの美文の後、一寸文学的表現に欠けますが、新春リレー対談として小生も参加しませう。

　長々と書いていますと、調子にのって久保田、鶴の友、そして寒梅の焼酎といきそうです。寒さ厳しき新潟から、秋の思い出を辿りつつ、三代先生に感謝しつつ、敵前逃亡風に腰がどうのこうといって打席に立たなかった溝上氏にバトンタッチといきますか。

　ところで、大兄もそうだったんですねえ。愚生も「草野選手」と書く度に「草野球」という禁句が頭をもたげて来るので困っていたのです。あんなにガッツのあるいい選手をまさか除名する訳にはいかないから、改名して貰います。「ミツオー」でどうだらうか？

「実に新潟に一軒だけのどグロをシャブシャブで食する、いや食べさせてくれる、いや食べさせていただく所があります。いやはや汚い店で、おやじもカンボジア人の風体、しかし佐渡の魚にこだわり、調子に載せるとあわびシャブ、くろだいシャブ松茸しゃぶと薬付けになりそうなところです。粋人いや酔人、是非とも来られたし。講演でも、プライベートでも来て下さい。実にうまい。柔らかい。口にはいると溶けるよう。

　正月、家を空けている間に届いていた年賀状の束を、なんとなく浮わついた気分で解きほぐして行くうちに、一枚の「非年賀状」に辿り着き、手が止まってしまった。

　かかる私信の公表は「支援して頂きたい」からではない。獄中にあっても勉強を怠らないでいる彼と対等に戦える力を、娑婆の我々は能く涵養し得ているのだろうか、と自問させられたからである。肝臓学会の中に野球部を結成したぐらいでは到底足りない。彼が今出来ないでいるあれやこれやを脳裏に数え上げてみる。多々あるが筆頭は「遊び」だ。遊びは娑婆でしか出来ない。彼に笑われない遊びを我々は遊び得ているのだろうか？遊びだけで彼に対抗しようとするなら我々は徹底して遊ばなければならない。家財を失うところまで遊び尽くさねばならない。しかしそんなことが我々に出来る筈もない。だから結局彼に笑われる。では、仕事ならどうだろうか？ちょっと新しいウイルスを見つけたぐらいでは「だからどうした」と詰め寄られるのがオチである。慢性肝炎の治療法を工夫して若干の進歩が見られたぐらいではフンと鼻で笑われる。では、娑婆の我々は、獄中の彼の眼から見て、八方塞がりなのだろうか？

　そうではないと思う。獄中の彼に出来ないことは何か、という問いからスタートしたのでこうなった。獄中の彼は「心を奮い立たせる日々を過ごして」いる。彼は娑婆にいた時もそうだった。戦闘的だった。挑戦的だった。我々凡人の到底真似し得ない奮闘努力の日々を送っていた。奮い立つ彼のこの「心」を少し分けて貰いたいと時に思うほどにそうだった。そして、今こそその時ではないだろうか。分けて貰ったその奮闘心を何に使おうがあとは自由である。遊びであれ学問であれ、心の踊っている様が見えるならば彼も文句は云わないだろう。

　昨日妙なメイルが舞い込んで来ました。感想は後日「球憩室」に載せることとして、先ずは本文を御紹介しませう。野球とは全く無縁の話ですが、「無縁」だからこそ、かかる事件が起こってしまうのだ、と思いませんか？

From: Stephen Feinstone

To: (Many)

Subject: Paper Retraction

Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 16:21:12 -0500

Dear Colleague,

It is with profound regret that I must inform you that in a few weeks a retraction of a paper (see attachment) of which I am a co-author will appear In PNAS. At least some of the data in the article (Prophylactic DNA vaccine for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection: HCV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte induction and protection from HCV-recombinant vaccinia infection in an HLA-A2.1 transgenic mouse model, by T. Arichi et al., published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97: 297-302, January 4, 2000) was fabricated by Dr. Arichi, the first author.

The basis of the paper was that we could vaccinate mice that were transgenic for human HLA-A2.1 with a DNA vaccine expressing HCV core and that these mice would make CTL responses to HLA-A2.1 restricted epitopes in the HCV core protein that we and others have previously identified. We had previously shown CTL responses to core in Balb/c mice and to three A2 epitopes in the A2 transgenic mice vaccinated with peptides representing those epitopes. In the paper in question, we did indeed show CTL responses to those three epitopes. In addition, we challenged these mice with a recombinant vaccinia virus expressing HCV core and found that the vaccinated mice were highly protected from this challenge, a kind of surrogate for HCV. In addition, we found that the protective effect could be blocked by treating the mice with anti-CD8 a few days prior to the challenge.

After Dr. Arichi left the lab, Marian Major and I together with our collaborator, Jay Berzofsky, tried to extend these studies to an enhanced epitope that we had previously described in order to determine if vaccination with this altered core A2 restricted CTL epitope would result in a stronger response. In the first experiments, we found that on challenge with the vaccinia/core we could recover no virus at all from any of the infected mice regardless of if they had been vaccinated. We spent months trying to understand what the problem was and finally realized that the strain of vaccinia that we had made the core recombinant in was NYVAC, a vaccine strain that is completely attenuated for mice. Typically, one would use the WR strain of vaccinia for such experiments as it is mouse adapted. We used the NYVAC virus because we already had the construct made and had not known at the time that it would not replicate in mice. When we contacted Dr. Arichi about his data, he defended it and referred us to his viral titration plates which he had saved. Indeed, he had plates that perfectly matched the titrations that were reported in the paper. As we knew absolutely that NYVAC simply does not replicate in mice, my conclusion at that time was that he had somehow falsified the data. No one, including the developers, have been able to infect mice with NYVAC. We ultimately brought Dr. Arichi back to the lab to "show" us how he could infect mice with NYVAC. We set up experiments under code and he did the work under our observation. When the experiments were concluded and the code broken, we found that no mouse inoculated with NYVAC had recoverable virus while we did obtain reasonable growth in mice inoculated with a WR/core recombinant. At this point, Dr. Arichi confessed that he had fabricated his data by adding stock virus to the ovary homogenates in order to produce the titration plates to match the data. At this time, we do not know if the CTL data reported in the paper was also fabricated. He told us that when he could not get virus growth in mice, he assumed that he was doing something wrong and as his time left at NIH was short, he wanted positive data to publish.

As a follow-up, we have now reproduced the basic protection data in mice vaccinated with the HCV core DNA vaccine. At one month after the third shot of DNA, we have observed a 4 to 5 log reduction in the titer of the recombinant WR vaccinia/core in the ovaries. We will be repeating the CTL work as well. Therefore, it appears that these experiments would work though not to the rather spectacular levels that we reported. If Dr. Arichi had simply told us of his problem in growing the vaccinia out of the mice, we could have solved the problem easily. I have found this experience to be humbling as well as humiliating and embarrassing. In retrospect, I think that there were signs that should have been recognized. The saddest part of this experience is that the overwhelming number of fellows that we have in our labs who would be repulsed by such behavior are the ones who will suffer as everyone comes under a type of heightened suspicion. I sincerely wish to apologize to any of my colleagues who may have tried to use our publication in their own work and not been able to obtain results similar to those we published.

Please feel free to pass this information on to any colleagues whom I may have missed.

Sincerely,

Stephen Feinstone

Chief, Laboratory of Hepatitis Viruses