July 1, 2010
CBC News
Unproven stem cell therapies sold online could be dangerous and costly, say researchers who have launched a website to educate and protect patients.
"Many people are going into the hands of predators," Dr. Irving Weissman, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, said in a release.
"They often mortgage their homes or borrow money to go abroad for these so-called treatments. They are away from their loved ones when they should have been together during the last months or years of their lives."
In Friday's issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, Weissman warns of the potential risks to patients and describes practices and guidelines to assess the validity of internet claims, such as being wary of clinics that advertise results mainly through patient testimonials.
An internet search for stem cell therapies results in more than 200 companies that claim to grow stem cells, inject them back into the patient and cure almost any condition, Weissman said.
The International Society for Stem Cell Research's website includes questions to ask potential clinics, and users can submit a specific website for the society to investigate.
When a company or clinic is submitted for investigation, the society said it will evaluate whether a medical ethics committee is involved to protect the rights of a patient and whether the proposed treatment will be supervised by an official regulatory body such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/07/01/stem-cell-online-warning.html#socialcomments-submit#ixzz0sYVBciN5
My comment (please feel free to add yours)
Irv Weissman and his fellow members of ISSCR should also warn that unproven stem cell therapies done in approved clinical trials may also be dangerous. Scientists at the Imperial College in London have just recently revealed that they have figured out what caused one of the most damaging side effects of the stem cell treatment given to trial participants there who underwent treatment for PD. While I am not an advocate for any and all stem cell treatments, I am an advocate for safe stem cell treatments and patient choice. There are groups out there such as ICMS which publish an offshore guide to stem cell therapy for patients. The ISSCR seems more intent on
a global FDA rather than offering real solutions for terminally ill patients. I have a terminal disease. I have had treatment offshore that gave me my life back. Now, Dr. Weissman and the ISSCR would like to remove that option for others because they claim treatments are unproven and unsafe. Instead, billions of dollars are going into research and not one stem based clinical trial for the disease I suffer from (COPD) is available in the U.S. I don't plan to sacrifice myself for endless research or a global FDA. I will continue to go offshore to get treatments as I prefer it to looking at the other side of the grass as the ISSCR would have me do. There is always an underlying reason why a group such as this suddenly becomes interested in patient welfare. I think that a lot of questions need to be answered before anyone turns to the ISSCR for the final word. Who gave them this authority?
CBC News
Unproven stem cell therapies sold online could be dangerous and costly, say researchers who have launched a website to educate and protect patients.
"Many people are going into the hands of predators," Dr. Irving Weissman, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, said in a release.
"They often mortgage their homes or borrow money to go abroad for these so-called treatments. They are away from their loved ones when they should have been together during the last months or years of their lives."
In Friday's issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, Weissman warns of the potential risks to patients and describes practices and guidelines to assess the validity of internet claims, such as being wary of clinics that advertise results mainly through patient testimonials.
An internet search for stem cell therapies results in more than 200 companies that claim to grow stem cells, inject them back into the patient and cure almost any condition, Weissman said.
The International Society for Stem Cell Research's website includes questions to ask potential clinics, and users can submit a specific website for the society to investigate.
When a company or clinic is submitted for investigation, the society said it will evaluate whether a medical ethics committee is involved to protect the rights of a patient and whether the proposed treatment will be supervised by an official regulatory body such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/07/01/stem-cell-online-warning.html#socialcomments-submit#ixzz0sYVBciN5
My comment (please feel free to add yours)
Irv Weissman and his fellow members of ISSCR should also warn that unproven stem cell therapies done in approved clinical trials may also be dangerous. Scientists at the Imperial College in London have just recently revealed that they have figured out what caused one of the most damaging side effects of the stem cell treatment given to trial participants there who underwent treatment for PD. While I am not an advocate for any and all stem cell treatments, I am an advocate for safe stem cell treatments and patient choice. There are groups out there such as ICMS which publish an offshore guide to stem cell therapy for patients. The ISSCR seems more intent on
a global FDA rather than offering real solutions for terminally ill patients. I have a terminal disease. I have had treatment offshore that gave me my life back. Now, Dr. Weissman and the ISSCR would like to remove that option for others because they claim treatments are unproven and unsafe. Instead, billions of dollars are going into research and not one stem based clinical trial for the disease I suffer from (COPD) is available in the U.S. I don't plan to sacrifice myself for endless research or a global FDA. I will continue to go offshore to get treatments as I prefer it to looking at the other side of the grass as the ISSCR would have me do. There is always an underlying reason why a group such as this suddenly becomes interested in patient welfare. I think that a lot of questions need to be answered before anyone turns to the ISSCR for the final word. Who gave them this authority?