How well-meaning donations end up fueling an unproven, virtually unregulated $2 billion stem cell industry.
Their shoulders and backs and knees were giving out. Pills and steroid injections hadn’t eased their pain. They were scared of surgery. So, one afternoon last October, two dozen men and women, many of them white-haired, some leaning on canes, shuffled into a meeting room at Robson Ranch, a luxury retirement community in Denton, Texas. Sipping iced tea and clutching brochures that promised a pain-free tomorrow, they checked off their ailments on a questionnaire.
They were there to see a presentation by Dr. David Greene, who was introduced as a “retired orthopedic surgeon.” Atlas Medical Center, a local clinic that specializes in pain treatment, hosted the event. Greene, a short, trim man with his hair slicked up, ignored the stage and microphone and stood close to his audience. After warming up the crowd with a joke about his inept golf skills, Greene launched into his sales pitch. A tiny vial no larger than the palm of his hand, he told the group, contains roughly 10 million live stem cells, harvested from the placenta, amniotic fluid, umbilical cord or amnion, the membrane that surrounds the fetus in the womb.
Injected into a joint or spine, or delivered intravenously into the bloodstream, Greene told his listeners, those cells could ease whatever ailed them.
On a screen behind him, Greene displayed a densely printed slide with a “small list” of conditions his stem cell product could treat: arthritis, tendinitis, psoriasis, lupus, hair loss, facial wrinkles, scarring, erectile dysfunction, heart failure, cardiomyopathy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, emphysema, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, ALS, neuropathy, pelvic pain, diabetes, dry eye, macular degeneration, kidney failure. And that was just a sample. “I need to add a couple more slides,” Greene said with a laugh.
Greene said that amniotic stem cells derive their healing power from an ability to develop into any kind of tissue, but he failed to mention that mainstream science does not support his claims. He also did not disclose that he lost his license to practice medicine in 2009, after surgeries he botched resulted in several deaths. Instead, he offered glowing statistics: amniotic stem cells could help the heart beat better, “on average by 20%,” he said. “Over 85% of patients benefit exceptionally from the treatment.”
“Patients come back to the center saying, ‘I can walk farther, I can breathe easier, I can sleep better,’ ” he proclaimed. “It’s remarkable the outcomes we’ve been seeing for the last few years.”
In the second row, a slender woman in a striped jacket, who had hobbled into the meeting on a wooden cane, pumped her fists in the air. “Stem cells!” she cheered.
For more than half a century, the regenerative possibilities of stem cells — which the body stores to repair damaged tissue and organs and restore blood supply — have tantalized the medical community. Bone marrow transplants for cancer patients, which rely on blood stem cells, fulfill this potential. But alongside legitimate, scientifically proven treatments, an industry has sprung up in which specialized clinics offer miracle remedies from poorly understood stem cell products.
These clinics are multiplying in the United States. According to a tally by Leigh Turner, an associate professor of bioethics at the University of Minnesota, there were 12 such clinics advertising to consumers in 2009; in 2017, there were more than
700. Unproven cellular therapies are a $2 billion global business,
according to a recent paper co-authored by Massimo Dominici, the lead investigator at the cellular therapy lab at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, in Italy.
This burgeoning business is largely unregulated. Technically, manufacturers are required to submit stem cell therapies for review as a drug, and to provide evidence of their safety and efficacy, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t enforced the rule consistently. The former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb acknowledged in an interview that the agency’s laissez-faire attitude has made it easier for stem cell clinics to proliferate. “This is an example where the FDA, for a long period of time, took enforcement discretion, then the field grew,” he said. “Then it becomes hard to step in and actually apply the regulation.”
Many clinics offer stem cells taken from a patient’s own bone marrow or fat. But they’re being challenged by…
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This article is a collaboration between ProPublica and The New Yorker.
Sudhanshu Dhingra
7 months agofrom where can we source it?
LALIT VARADPANDE
In Reply to Sudhanshu Dhingra 7 months agoI bought at Bigbasket after reading the article