Search Results for: placebo

MD Stem Cells purported Right To Try program

Steven-Levy-Jeffrey-Weiss, SCOTS trial

I’ve been concerned about a stem cell group called MD Stem Cells for many years. Now it comes under more scrutiny from a new must-read piece by Donna Young over at S&P Global. Young’s article reports a puzzling, purported right-to-try (RTT) program that MD Stem Cells appears to working on with Richard Garr. Note that …

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7-Year Glitch? Updates on my overly optimistic 2013 stem cell predictions for 2020

STEM-CELL-PREDICTIONS

Back in 2013, a half dozen years ago, I went out on a limb and made predictions for the stem cell field for 2020. These are different than my yearly predictions for the coming year (for instance, you can see my predictions made in 2018 for this year of 2019 here). As to my 2013 …

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Sexual Medicine Society on Unproven Regenerative Therapies for Erectile Dysfunction

Sexual-Medicine-Society-of-North-America

There are many potential causes of erectile dysfunction or ED and a host of ideas about how to treat it. Some approaches to erectile dysfunction are evidence-based and even have been rigorously proven such as the drugs Viagra and Cialis, which increase blood flow to the penis. Depending on the causes of the dysfunction, these …

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Japan’s dangerous gamble approving unproven stem cells for spinal cord injury

spinal-cord-injury-MRI

There is real hope for treating spinal cord injury with stem cell-based therapies in the future. However, unfortunately regulators in Japan have taken a major misstep in approving a not-ready-for-primetime mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based approach to spinal cord injury. Their decision is dangerous and unwise. In a Nature piece (linked to above) by David Cyranoski …

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Does insurance cover stem cell therapy at unproven clinics?

Does insurance cover stem cell therapy? Even at clinics? What about coverage from employers?

Stem cell injections at unproven clinics are expensive and unproven so a lot of patients have asked me if insurance covers stem cell therapy at clinics? Mostly the answer is “no”, but in rare cases there is some kind of coverage, mainly from employers that have inked some kind of deal with a stem cell …

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On stem cells for lungs the-profit clinic offerings don’t make much sense

lung stem cells, lung health institute

What’s the deal with lung stem cells and stem cells for lungs? For a long time researchers found that stem cells were elusive in adult lungs. There was debate about whether they even existed, but it now seems fairly established that there are some of the little guys in there. Just because one of the …

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Stem cells for autism: time to hit pause in 2018?

stem-cells-autism

Stem cells for autism? After watching this area for many years, I’m not sure there’s any “there there”. There are logical reasons to think that certain stem cells might help many specific diseases, but in my view autism isn’t likely to be one of them. I hope I’m wrong, but today at least in 2018, …

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Stem cells for the flu? Pondering PR email, frailty data from Longeveron

Tompkins-Figure-2A

Stem cells for flu? For me, that idea is new. Some months back there was buzz about the stem cell biotech Longeveron related to its report on early trial data on testing infusions of mesenchymal stem cells for frailty in the aged. Frailty that pops up in some aging folks can manifest in a variety …

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Cord blood for cerebral palsy: mostly discouraging new trial data

umbilical-cord-blood, umbilical cord blood stem cells

Some notable newly published Phase II data from the Duke cord blood for cerebral palsy trial unfortunately doesn’t give much reason for optimism that this approach is going to have a substantial positive effect for these kids. The double-blinded, placebo-controlled study did not find a meaningful benefit overall from infusions of autologous cord blood (ACB) for …

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Shh! 10 stem cell clinic secrets kept from patients

Shh-e1507912252352

For-profit stem cell clinic secrets are bad news for patients. Stem cell clinics are in the business of making profits above all else and to make steady money they need a strong flow of patients as their paying customers for their non-FDA approved offerings. In order to keep the money pouring in, some of the …

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