stem cell clinics

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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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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Attorney Jaffe, fan of less oversight, still clobbers Florida stem cell clinic firm

Richard-Jaffe

Attorney Richard Jaffe, who has been an advocate for clinics to have the right to sell and patient to buy unproven therapies such as the stem cells sold by clinics and unproven cancer therapies, just did a kind of shocking u-turn on a specific point. Jaffe and I have very different philosophical views of the …

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A real FDA blacklist: what is it, who’s on it, & should some stem cell clinics be?

FDA-Blacklist

I didn’t know until recently that the FDA has a blacklist, which is called the “FDA Debarment List”. You can check it out here. Should one or more particularly egregious unproven stem cell clinic operators should be on the list given their risk-taking with patients in the name of profit? There aren’t any on there …

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TV Journalists Tackling Stem Cell Clinics

CBS-This-Morning-TV-segment-Stem-Cells

Even as some unproven, for-profit stem cell clinics promote themselves aggressively in many ways including now on TV, on the flip side lately we’ve seen more TV journalists covering questionable marketing by the clinics and negative patient outcomes. Today I saw that CBS This Morning, a national broadcast, had a fairly long TV segment on stem …

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Helpful Zettler insights from Q&A on FDA suits against stem cell clinics

Patti-Zettler

At the request of the FDA, the DOJ is suing for permanent injunctions against two stem cell clinic firms, U.S. Stem Cell, Inc. and California Stem Cell Treatment Center (and for the latter, its parent chain of around 100 clinics, Cell Surgical Network). What does this big development mean in practical terms and how might it …

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Up your nose? OMG Facebook video moments from clinic sued by DOJ

US-Stem-Cell-Facebook-video

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how about a Facebook video from a stem cell clinic? In my view it sure tells a story with some unusual twists. I wrote last week about this Facebook video by Kristin Comella, the leader of the publicly-traded stem cell clinic firm US Stem Cell, Inc. (USRM). As …

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