The 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, April 12th, is rapidly approaching and I think there are some lessons there for the stem cell field. The Titanic was hyped as a marvel of modern technology, widely advertised as huge, unsinkable and fast. An unexpected combination….almost too good to be true. This portrayal of …
I’m a stem cell researcher and I’m very excited about the potential of stem cell therapies, but my excitement is mostly directed to the future. I’m also a cancer survivor and I know what it is like to get a grave diagnosis and how important hope is and sometimes patients and their families need hope …
Balancing hope and danger with dubious stem cell treatments: a report from Canada Read More »
Over the past year the FDA and FBI have stepped up their actions related to sellers of dubious stem cell treatments. Most recently we have seen arrests of “Drs.” Morales and Stowe as well as others. Mr. Stowe, who is not a medical doctor, remains a fugitive of the FBI. Has the FBI now effectively …
My message to sellers of dubious stem cell treatments: time to quit Read More »
Who is the stem cell fugitive? When I was a kid I loved re-runs of that program The Fugitive. I always knew that Dr. Richard Kimble was innocent. Then in 1993 Harrison Ford starred in a movie based on the TV show, which was a fun one. Now we have a real life fugitive story …
There was another federal indictment just handed down that alleges that one Francisco Morales (aka Dr. Frank Morales) broke the law with stem cells. Allegedly he took umbilical cords (telling patients that they would be used for medical research), facilitated isolation of stem cells, and shipped them out of state to be used in dubious …
Indicted alleged stem cell predator Morales & Margolis: any links? Read More »
Every year I give out The Screamers Science Hype Award. The point of The Screamers is to raise awareness about science hype and catalyze new ways to combat it. In that spirit, I award what I see as the most extreme examples of science hype. Sometimes in addition to the one main winner, I give “honorable” …
2023 The Screamers Science Hype Award goes to anti-aging media coverage Read More »
Lately it seems like something called Mastodon is on the minds of many a Twitter user. There is a wave of people tweeting “let’s dump Twitter and go to Mastodon now that Musk has taken over!” However, so far I don’t see Mastodon as a solid alternative to the admittedly annoyingly musky Twitter. I do …
What is Mastodon & why so far it’s a clunky alternative to Twitter Read More »
When you think of Florida, what else crosses your mind first? Orange juice? Heat and humidity? Beaches? Disney? I don’t know if this says more about me or the state, but these days I think of stem cells. Florida and California are the two biggest hotbeds of the for-profit stem cell clinic world, each with …
Sentinel Takes Investigational Deep Dive into Florida Stem Cell Clinic Soup Read More »
For years I’ve been writing about fat stem cell clinics that sell non-FDA approved stem cell “treatments” to vulnerable patients right here in America. These clinics have been sprouting up like mushrooms across the US and their numbers may be above 200 today overall. As a result perhaps it was inevitable that one would arrive in …
My new ‘neighbor’ in Sacramento: a fat stem cell clinic Read More »
This is a crowdsource page for people who want to post their findings on their attempts to validate the STAP stem cell ( ＳＴＡＰ細胞) method. I’m going to color successful or even moderately encouraging reports green and failures/discouraging results in red. *For those with longer attention spans, see some additional important considerations for this crowdsourcing effort at …