Use Caution When Considering Overseas Stem Cell Treatments

People suffering from Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, ALS (or Lou Gehrig’s disease), spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, etc., are hopeful that stem cell research will soon provide a cure for their disease or condition.

Everyday, headlines announce yet another astounding scientific breakthrough involving stem cells.

Unfortunately, most of these eye-opening discoveries are taking place at the animal research level, among mice, rats, etc.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration carefully regulates the development and application of new treatments for diseases and disorders. It uses a scientific process that begins with animal studies and extends methodically through various levels of clinical trials involving humans.

Only then, when the treatment has proven both safe and effective, does the FDA allow release of the new drug or treatment to the marketplace for use by doctors. But desperate patients are anything but patient when it comes to waiting for stem cell-based treatments. They are listening to the pitches of clinics and hospitals outside of the United States that promise cures using stem cells.

The result is that medical tourism (also called health tourism) for stem cell treatments has become a huge growth industry, populated with quacks, snake oil salesmen, and charlatans.

They take advantage of the fact that stem cell therapy is virtually unregulated in certain countries. Overly optimistic patients and their families spend many thousands of dollars for mostly unproven treatments, and for travel, accommodations, etc. The provider Web sites are full of testimonials from supposedly satisfied patients. However, none of the providers offer scientific evidence of their treatments’ success. And none spend any time discussing their failures.

The simple fact is: anyone promising effective treatments for any disease or disorder using stem cells today (other than those involving blood cancers and certain other blood disorders) is flat out lying.

A physician-researcher at the Duke University Medical Center told me, “We blood and marrow transplant specialists have been using cells derived from bone marrow, peripheral mobilized blood, and umbilical cord blood for many years in the treatment of a number of fatal diseases including leukemia, lymphoma, immune deficiencies, bone marrow failure syndromes and a number of inherited metabolic disorders.”

Another researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine echoed that observation: “Hematopoietic stem cells have been in use in the clinic since 1957 in the context of bone marrow transplants. They have been used to cure immunodeficiency, sickle cell anemia, and to rescue patients from high doses of chemotherapy. Other types of stem cells, such as mesenchymal stem cells are in clinical trials now.”

But beyond that, frankly, there is no scientifically proven stem cell-based treatment for human diseases and disorders.

There are some clinical trials involving humans underway as well. All of this is certainly cause for optimism. But patience is the appropriate watchword. We’re still a long way from treatments and cures.

A noted stem cell researcher the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine told me in a recent interview that he is frustrated at not being able to help patients right now.

“As a physician-scientist who sees patients almost every day who need replacement tissues and organs, it is frustrating not to be able to provide what they need,” he said. “On the other hand, I see great promise in the science of regenerative medicine and know that with a national commitment to succeed, we will make advances that can solve many of these problems.”

That is the voice of reason.

Unfortunately, though people should know that treatments and cures are a long way away, they generally don’t. Or they ignore reasoned voices out of a desperate need to help a sick or disabled child or other loved one. And that leaves a hole that scam artists can drive a truck through.

What desperate patients don’t need is to be robbed of thousands of dollars by unscrupulous “medical professionals” out to make a quick buck.

So, be warned. At this point in time, most of the stem cell-based treatments and cures being offered in foreign countries are utterly bogus.

The right path to clinical success in stem cell research, at least in countries like the United States, Canada, the UK, France, etc., involves rigorous adherence to scientific method and FDA approval. Anyone who has skipped that process is nothing more than a quack.

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