The Washington Post broke the story this morning that Google has a new biomedical ad policy that may really shake things up for stem cell clinics. The search giant announced the new policy on its blog that will restrict advertisements for unproven stem cell clinics, cellular and gene therapies. This is great news. Google new …
Google to block unproven stem cell clinic & gene therapy ads Read More »
We’re seeing more muddy waters in the stem cell universe. A chiropractic stem cell and alternative medicine clinic has popped up calling itself, of all things, CIRM. On another front, an already controversial docuseries set to air tomorrow combines interviews with prominent academic stem cell scientists and unproven stem cell clinic folks, muddying the waters. …
Muddy waters: stem cell clinic calls itself CIRM & docuseries sparks controversy Read More »
There’s a lot of questionable “stem cell” injections these days involving purported amniotic stem cell or other perinatal (birth-related) material. Regulators are taking note including the FTC, which took some unprecedented action last year on this front. Now the FTC has announced that more than half a million $USD have been returned to consumers who …
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 …
Japan’s dangerous gamble approving unproven stem cells for spinal cord injury Read More »
There are gray areas within the larger stem cell sphere or as I called it in a recent paper “the stem cell ecosystem“, but chiropractors doing stem cell transplants is not one of them. This is unethical and risky on many levels, but the number of chiropractors selling stem cells is increasing rapidly nonetheless. Chiropractors …
Chiropractors and their state boards should stop risky stem cell injections Read More »
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took some strong action against specific stem cell clinics today and the physician behind them. I see this as really good news and it’s something I’ve been pushing for years. The clinics in question in part marketed unproven stem cells for sick kids. Frankly, iffy for-profit stem cell “treatments” for …
101-year old lady cured? Groundbreaking FTC Action on Stem Cell Clinic Marketing Read More »
The 60 Minutes show here in the U.S. has done sobering segments over the years on risky, unproven stem cell clinics, but now there is a new episode of 60 Minutes Australia that is the polar opposite: it mostly made a mess of things with its fluffy coverage of the story of a wonderful little …
60 Minutes Australia Pushes Unproven Stem Cells for Cerebral Palsy Read More »
What do you get when celebrity podcaster Joe Rogan talks about stem cells? There can be big impact one way or another. I don’t believe his shows on stem cells have helped provide solid info. What do I mean? Patients can be strongly influenced by what they see on social media and YouTube videos pack …
Deconstructing Joe Rogan promotional stem cell video with Mel Gibson Read More »
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 …
Cord blood for cerebral palsy: mostly discouraging new trial data Read More »
I appreciate fun linguistic approaches to explaining science such as a good science metaphor and I use them myself at times, but sometimes these end up risking doing much more harm than good. The best or should I say worst example I’ve heard recently is referring to a growth factor called BDNF as “Miracle-Gro for the brain”. …
Risky science metaphor: BDNF as ‘Miracle-Gro for the brain’ Read More »