Month: November 2018

Medical Board of California Task Force to Investigate Stem Cell Clinics

Medical-Board-of-California

State involvement in reining in predatory stem cell clinics has never been more important, which is why it’s such good news that the Medical Board of California has a task force in the works to investigate such firms. According to a new NBC7 report (linked to above) focusing both on this news and on their own investigation …

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Trying to connect the dots on CRISPR baby story paints a dark, cloudy picture

connect-the-dots

When I was a little kid I played this game called “connect the dots” or “dot-to-dot”, where you draw a line from dot-to-dot in numerical order and at some point a picture starts to emerge. I think kids and even some adults still play this today. They even come in extreme versions with hundreds or …

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Why CRISPR baby production (if it happened) was unethical & dangerous

Jiankui-He-who-claims-CRISPR-baby-production

Reports are out that a scientist in China has been working to make a CRISPR baby for some time and supposedly has made twin genetically modified babies. I see this work as unethical and dangerous. Just a couple years ago when I published my book GMO Sapiens on potential use of CRISPR in a heritable manner …

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Lessons from sharks: how we might grow new teeth via stem cells

shark-new-teeth

What if we could grow new teeth from stem cells to replace lost ones or fix others that have big cavities again via tooth stem cells? While humans and some other animals like dogs have only two sets of teeth — so-called baby and adult teeth — in their lives, other animals aren’t so limited. For …

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Several new investigations expose ‘snake oil’ stem cell clinics

snake-oil-stem-cell-clinics

We need more investigations of for-profit stem cell clinics selling what some view as ‘snake oil.’ Over the years I’ve mainly resisted using terms like “snake oil,” but that phrase is being used more often and more recently I think we need to be blunt about what is being sold. Part of effectively countering the …

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Hope on Parkinson’s front: Japan IPSC trial 1st patient

Fig-3i-Kikuchi-et-al.-Nature-2017-IPS-cell-Parkinsons-

In Parkinson’s Disease patients develop neurological dysfunction as they lose a special kind of brain cell called dopaminergic (or dopamine) neurons. While a number of different approaches to this disease have been studied for decades, nothing has proven particularly successful in slowing its progression. As a result there has been a big need for novel thinking …

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Sizing Up Sizzling FDA Warning Letter to Fat Stem Cell Clinic Stemgenex

Stemgenex

Do the hundreds of unproven fat stem cell clinics in the U.S. like Stemgenex have a tenable future without working with the FDA? It seems less certain now in 2018 than it did in 2017, and that’s a good thing in my view. Stemgenex received an FDA warning letter yesterday that included a list of many …

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Chiropractors and their state boards should stop risky stem cell injections

chiropractor-stem-cells

There are gray areas within the larger stem cell sphere or as I called it in a recent paper “the stem cell ecosystem“, but chiropractors doing stem cell transplants is not one of them. This is unethical and risky on many levels, but the number of chiropractors selling stem cells is increasing rapidly nonetheless. Chiropractors …

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Stem cell eye drops? Skepticism of American Academy of Stem Cell Physicians (AAOSCP)

AAOSCP-meeting

I’ve been hearing more recently about something called the American Academy of Stem Cell Physicians (variously AAOSCP or AASCP). Its name has the sound of an organization like some traditional medical academy such as the American Academy of Internal Medicine, but my sense is that this is a totally different kind of beast. People have …

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To report a sketchy stem cell clinic, a list of simple, concrete things to do

stem-cell-clinic-dart-board

The stem cell clinic industry selling unapproved “therapies” is ubiquitous and yet somehow still growing it seems. Many of us are encountering more of them including via ads and the clinics are basically all over the place. What should someone do if they see a stem cell clinic that is particularly concerning? A lot of …

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