What do patients who go to stem cell clinics really think of their experiences?
It can be hard to get good data on this important question. For that reason, it was great to see a new article on this topic. With perhaps around 2,000 unproven clinics in the U.S., these firms are likely to have tens or hundreds of thousands of people as customers a year. Many are put at risk.
See a map below from way back in 2016 when stem cell clinics were already active in just about every state.
Patient views on stem cell clinics
Here’s the new paper on patient experiences.Clinical use of autologous cell-based therapies in an evolving regulatory landscape: A survey of patient experiences and perceptions, F1000. This is from Ubaka Ogbogu and Nevicia Case. It provides interesting insights into patient perspectives and experiences going to stem cell clinics. How many patients were told the stem cells were not proven to work?
How many patients had side effects? The number surprised me.
Check out this paper.
More recommended reads
- Scientists say they’ve made a breakthrough in efforts to bring back the extinct Tasmanian tiger, CBS News. This kind of de-extinction effort makes more sense to me than efforts with Woolly Mammoths.
- Are We Creating ‘Superhumans’? US Startup Offers IQ Screening For Embryos, NDTV World. The firm here is Heliospect Genomics, which is in the US.
- Company seeks arbitration against Duke University claiming $100M in damages, Triangle Business Journal. Here we have more on the Cryo-Cell legal conflict with Duke that I wrote about last month.
- Can Stem Cells Relieve Chronic Low Back Pain? Medscape. In this particular case with allogeneic stem cells, the answer is generally “no”.
- Blood stem cell therapy maker Garuda gets new CEO, adds $47M, EndPoints. As I’ve written before Garuda Therapeutics has company out there in this general space including Allogene and Clade Therapeutics, which was acquired by Century Therapeutics.
- This Toad Is So Tiny That They Call It a Flea, NYT.
Blast from the past: super pygmy vertebrates
The article in the NYT above reminds me of an old post I did on pygmy vertebrates: Why aren’t there vertebrate super pygmies? It’s a fascinating area of science. It may seem simple, but why are animals the sizes they are? It goes beyond cell numbers and cell sizes.
Speaking of which, why are cells the sizes they are? Most cells are about 10 microns. Some of this relates to biophysics.
I would reqsting a reputable center. Any recommendations would be appreciated
Kind regards.
I know you’ve wrote about this in the past but what is your current opinion on MUSE cells? https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/chris-hemsworth-shares-health-alzheimers-170030984.html
@Bill, I saw that too and will probably write about it. That article is junk.
I still don’t see much evidence that MUSE cells are real. It’s remarkable that there are clinical trials on them, clinics marketing them, etc. when there is so little data and from so few labs. They seem similar to VSELs in how only a few labs supposedly can isolate and study them. To me it also just doesn’t make sense that adults would have pluripotent stem cells.