DeCherney withdraws plagiarism charge against Cha

Back on April 7, IPBiz noted:

The long and the short of the last two points is SIMPLE. Someone (Dr. Lee or Fertility and Sterility) should produce the initial copy of the manuscript (so that one can see "who" the AUTHORS were. Separately, someone should produce the agreement signed by Dr. Lee with Fertility and Sterility to see if "no prior publication" was part of the agreement.

Two months later, on June 7, californiastemcellreportdiscusses a letter by the editor of Fertility & Sterility (Alan DeCherney) which included the text:

"After checking our records, I acknowledge that Dr. Jeong-Hwan Kim's name was included as an author when the manuscript was originally submitted, though I am not aware of the circumstances that ultimately led to his exclusion from the list of authors. I also acknowledge the fact that two formal requests were made in 2006 (after publication of the article in F&S) asking that Dr. Kim be added to the article as an author and that I did not respond to either of them.

Furthermore, DeCherney began by saying:

"I am writing to apologize for the distress and any reputational damage my statements to The Scientist (February 20, 2007) and the Los Angeles Times (February 18, 2007) have caused you and your organization. Considering the facts of the matter, I consider my references to 'plagiarism' and 'perjury' to be inaccurate and regrettable.I hereby retract them and give you permission to forward this letter to the authors of both articles, and to their editors, for their information. You may use this letter in full form publicly in any way that you wish."