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[Kimer Med]

Does anyone know of high-quality clinics currently offering stem cell therapy?

My neighbor had some success at one in China (treating autism). Hard to tell much from the websites of most companies that claim to offer something similar.

[Lebombo]

From the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine Medicine's Wild West — Unlicensed Stem-Cell Clinics in the United States

September 2015

 

 

A couple excerpts:

 

Although stem-cell therapy may hold great potential, the field is less advanced than the public has been led to believe. Stem-cell clinics in the United States and abroad have capitalized on this confusion by selling treatments that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), supported by clinical studies, or covered by insurers.

The FDA has approved few treatments involving stem cells. The approved therapies use hematopoietic stem cells to treat diseases of the blood and immune system. But the majority of therapies offered by stem-cell clinics use adipose-derived stem cells packaged as a product called stromal vascular fraction (SVF). Procedures using SVF have become increasingly popular because of the relative ease of acquiring the cells. 

 

Although the FDA has not determined that SVF is safe or effective in treating any disease, U.S. clinics sell SVF-based procedures to patients with myriad conditions — from benign conditions such as hair loss to chronic and life-threatening diseases such as heart failure, muscular dystrophy, and Parkinson's disease.

 

These clinics neither claim their treatments are effective nor explicitly state that they're unfounded. Their websites frame their work as experimental — although none of the clinics are conducting FDA-approved clinical trials — and emphasize the potential regenerative capabilities of stem cells. Their language is intentionally imprecise and exploits the vulnerability of patients with debilitating diseases.

 

 

Read the entire publication at:  http://www.nejm.org/...56/NEJMp1504560

 

 

 

Furthermore, there are no gold standard stem cell therapies available.  The exception is the one and only FDA-approved clinical trials for qualifying patients with Age Related Macular Degeneration, Stargardt disease, and Myopic Macular Degeneration .  These treatments, via clinical trial, are offered by Robert Lanza's company, Ocata Therapeutics.  

 

For more information, you can visit https://www.ocata.co...clinical-trials

 

 

 

 

 

Another source of clear, up-to-date information on this topic here on UC Davis School of Medicine Professor Dr. Paul S. Knoepfler's website:

 

Post Title: Stem cell clinics, FDA, and giant, unapproved for-profit human experiments

 

There is also a comment section where you may find opposing points of view advocating the successes experienced/demonstrated at unverified, unlicensed stem cell clinics.

 

http://www.ipscell.c...umanexperiment/

 

 

Edited by Lebombo, 11 September 2015 - 01:11 AM.