Month: August 2018

Placebo effect & “the fade” after stem cell clinic shots

placebo-effect-expectations-from-hype, science hype

Sometimes when I talk about possible placebo effects with fans of stem cell clinics I feel like placebo becomes akin to a bad word in the discussion. However, any kind of medical procedure can cause placebo effects in people. We’re all susceptible to it. I believe that many perceived positive outcomes at stem cell clinics …

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As exosome work advances, clinics pitch unproven therapies to patients

exosome-clinical-trials

Time to sell exosome therapies to patients? No. Some stem cell clinics and related firms are looking for new ways to make profits and toward that goal a few have latched onto the legitimate buzz around exosome research. What are exosomes? Imagine if you could bubble up a pea-sized sphere off your skin full of …

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60 Minutes Australia Pushes Unproven Stem Cells for Cerebral Palsy

A stem cells for cerebral palsy 60 minutes ad.

The 60 Minutes show here in the U.S. has done sobering segments over the years on risky, unproven stem cell clinics, but now there is a new episode of 60 Minutes Australia that is the polar opposite: it mostly made a mess of things with its fluffy coverage of the story of a wonderful little …

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Arthritis patient with pain’s email on stem cell clinic & my answer

Knee arthritis, stem cell therapy for knees

Stem cells for arthritis and pain are hot topics these days and I’m getting an increasing number of patients reaching out with questions and sharing their situations related to arthritis or pain (or usually both together). I asked one arthritis patient who reached out to me if they would be OK with me sharing their …

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TGIF Weekend Science Reads: stem cells, PRP, CIRM, CRISPR, & more

Sun-et-al-PNAS-2018-part-of-Fig-1

What do you read on the weekend? I wish for me it was at least in part some contemporary novel or science fiction, but that’s rare. More often than not it is almost all science. I do read the Sunday NY Times at least. I usually accumulate things during the week that I want to …

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Stem cell therapy reviews: knees, lung, autism, & Regenexx

stem-cell-therapy-reviews

Who decides whether a stem cell therapy is “good” or “bad”, and should that kind of a judgment be more focused on direct patient perspectives such as their stem cell therapy reviews as consumers or based on biomedical science? Both? I’ve written before about how stem cell patients are increasingly thinking of themselves as consumers …

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Poll on refunding CIRM on eve of informational legislative hearing

CIRM-

Our California stem cell agency, CIRM, started as a baby even before I came to California in 2006 to start my lab here at UC Davis School of Medicine, but now CIRM or to use its full name the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is I’d say a full-grown, mature adult at about age 13 …

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The opioid crisis, pain, stem cells, & FDA

stem cell therapy for back pain

Last year I started seeing stem cells mentioned along with the opioid crisis in a particular way, but now recently I saw an entirely different pairing of stem cells with the opioid crisis. The first connection I saw was of a few for-profit, unproven clinic firms claiming that for pain sufferers it would be better …

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Mitalipov rebuts CRISPR pub critiques: strengthens case, but puzzles remain

Ma-et-al.-2018-Nature-FIgure-1

Remember that Shoukhrat Mitalipov lab paper on the use of CRISPR in human embryos? It’s back in the news. One of the biggest stories of 2017 centered on a Nature paper (Ma, et al., see my quick, initial review shortly after it was published here) from Mitalipov’s lab claiming both efficient repair of a disease-causing …

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