Source: NPR
The Food and Drug Administration is taking action against stem-cell clinics in California and Florida that are selling stem cell therapies that have yet to be approved.
“There are a small number of unscrupulous actors who have seized on the clinical promise of regenerative medicine, while exploiting the uncertainty, in order to make deceptive, and sometimes corrupt assurances to patients based on unproven and, in some cases, dangerously dubious products,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said, as reported by NPR.
Clinics are claiming to use stem cells from a person’s own fat to treat various conditions. Additionally, clinics were using live vaccinia virus vaccine as part of a stem-cell treatment for cancer, which FDA officials called “danger and unproven.”
Medical Director, Elliot Lander, of the California Stem Cell Treatment Centers, explained that the FDA’s actions are counterproductive to stem-cell research and also said that the company has not charged cancer patients at all for the treatments, which have all been a part of a carefully designed research study.
Other stem-cell researchers praised the FDA for removing unproven treatments from the market.
Read full story at: NPR