Stem Cells
Dr. Bruno’s Original Post: Stem cells DO NOT help polio survivors !
"Hundreds of clinics have sprung up around the country, offering treatments supposedly containing stem cells, to treat a wide variety of ailments, including arthritis, eye disorders, Parkinson’s disease and lung problems. The treatments are marketed as having curative or healing properties, but there is no proof that they work or are safe."
12 People Hospitalized With Infections from Stem Cell Shots
By Denise Grady Dec. 20, 2018
Article Summary
“Twelve patients became seriously ill after receiving injections that supposedly contained stem cells from umbilical cord blood, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which issued a warning to the California company, Genetech, that made the blood product they were given.
(The company has no connection with Genentech, the biotechnology corporation.)
The F.D.A. said on Thursday that it had also written to 20 clinics that offer unapproved stem cell treatments, warning them that such products are generally regulated by the agency and encouraging the clinics to contact federal regulators before November 2020, when enforcement will tighten. The names of the clinics have not been released.”
“Hundreds of clinics have sprung up around the country, offering treatments supposedly containing stem cells, to treat a wide variety of ailments, including arthritis, eye disorders, Parkinson’s disease and lung problems. The treatments are marketed as having curative or healing properties, but there is no proof that they work or are safe.”
“Clinics offering the treatments claim they are not drugs and therefore do not need F.D.A. approval, but in some cases the agency disagrees. In November 2017, it gave the clinics three years to come into compliance, and said during that period it would use “enforcement discretion”— giving the industry some leeway but cracking down on clinics that harmed patients.
One, U.S. Stem Cell Clinic L.L.C. of Sunrise, Fla. had treated three patients who lost their sight after stem cells were injected into their eyes.
The California Stem Cell Treatment Center, with locations in Rancho Mirage and Beverly Hills, had been administering a combination of smallpox vaccine and stem cells to cancer patients. They contracted infections in their bloodstreams or joints, and all were hospitalized.
Tests of unopened vials of the cord-blood products taken from clinics giving the shots found the same types of microbes that had infected the patients, which included E. coli and other fecal bacteria.”
Note: A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 21, 2018, on Page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: A Dozen Patients Require Hospitalization After Receiving Stem Cell Injections.