Fact check

Review of Bioinformant, unproven stem cell clinic promotion, NIH & Pfizer as clients?

June 23, 2022 / By / 8 Comments
Bioinformant stem cell t-shirt

A few years ago a promotional website called Bioinformant popped up in the stem cell arena. It’s very different in some ways than most other stem cell-related websites that I’ve seen. It’s a marketing and promotion site. What’s the backstory? I believe there’s reason for concern here specifically related to Bioinformant promoting unproven stem cell …

Review of Bioinformant, unproven stem cell clinic promotion, NIH & Pfizer as clients? Read More »

Fact-check of stem cell therapy for pain & neuropathy

April 6, 2022 / By / 4 Comments
knoepfler turner cell stem cell 2016 fig. 2b stem cells for pain and other conditions

Does it make any sense medically or scientifically to use stem cell therapy for pain or neuropathy? There isn’t much solid evidence that this is a good way to go. However, there’s a vast scope of research ongoing in this area. Stem cell clinics have been earning millions of dollars each year selling this idea …

Fact-check of stem cell therapy for pain & neuropathy Read More »

Fact-checking stem cell face cream: less than face value

February 26, 2023 / By / 5 Comments
Stem cell face cream. Taking a humorous look at what these might do.

I remember the first time I ran across an ad for a stem cell face cream and it wasn’t pretty. This was about 10 years ago. The stem cell cream in question made several claims that seemed highly doubtful. In a sense what the cream’s maker was selling was the idea of stem cell-based youth …

Fact-checking stem cell face cream: less than face value Read More »

Fact check: Lung Health Institute & cell therapies for lung disease

April 13, 2021 / By / 11 Comments
the lung health institute

What should we make of clinics like the Lung Health Institute? These clinics sell unproven stem cell or regenerative therapies for lung disease. Overall, I’m extremely skeptical. I don’t believe it’s worth the cost. There are also going to be potentially serious health risks. Lung disease is a broad category including COPD, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, …

Fact check: Lung Health Institute & cell therapies for lung disease Read More »

Fact-Checking Panama stem cell institute: cost, safety, efficacy, docs

May 24, 2022 / By / 43 Comments

Somehow time has flown by so that I’ve been around for ages in the stem cell universe and some unproven stem cell clinic type firms, like the well-known Panama stem cell clinic that sells autism “treatments”, are also long-timers. It’s been an odd parallel existence for more than a decade. Today’s post is focused on …

Fact-Checking Panama stem cell institute: cost, safety, efficacy, docs Read More »

Fact-check: F grade for irresponsible stem cell COVID-19 cure piece

March 1, 2021 / By / 4 Comments
vitro biopharma stem cells covid 19

At times there’s been seriously bad journalism covering COVID-19 itself including implications of various things being a COVID cure. Of course, media coverage of stem cell research itself sometimes ends up being a train-wreck of hype too. More recently we’ve seen irresponsible journalism also around the specific idea of stem cells for COVID-19, but sometimes …

Fact-check: F grade for irresponsible stem cell COVID-19 cure piece Read More »

Head transplant surgery update & fact check

February 3, 2023 / By / 8 Comments
sergio canavero perhaps the leading advocate of head transplant technology

Is a head transplant actually going to be an option for extending life or changing what it means to be human? What about brain transplants? Let’s lump head and brain transplants together. Any possibility of this happening in coming decades? How close are we to that reality in 2023? In today’s post I give an update. …

Head transplant surgery update & fact check Read More »

More Duke Autism Center backstory: stem cell ‘magic’ & money

August 26, 2022 / By / Leave a Comment
Duke-Curemark-autism-study-pamphlet

Last week I wrote a long post detailing the troubling multimillion-dollar reverberations between the Duke Autism Center and a for-profit stem cell clinic. The clinic in Panama is The Stem Cell Institute. The potential entanglements raise a bunch of questions and concerns. They center on questionable, unproven autism “treatments”. In Duke’s case, their own clinical …

More Duke Autism Center backstory: stem cell ‘magic’ & money Read More »