In 2017, three women went blind after paying a so-called ‘stem cell clinic’ in Florida
thousands of dollars to treat their macular degeneration.
Wait a second, a year ago Julian was talking about all the new and exciting advances in
this field.
Why are these stem cell therapies dangerous, and why aren’t real, safe, and effective
therapies on the market yet?
I know right?
Things like this keep happening across the US, which recently made the FDA basically
say:
Hold up.
These “unproven and unsafe products” purport to address a serious disease, but
instead could “put patients at significant risk.”
We’ve talked about stem cells before on this channel, going over what they are and
how they work, as well as some of the groundbreaking stem cell treatments that are showing promise.
But, the early flagship trial that hoped to improve macular degeneration--a disease leading
to eventual blindness--was halted after just ONE patient received treatment, due to concerns
if they posed any threat to the long-term health of those participating in the trials.
That’s how cautious REAL clinical trials are--they really try to minimize any risk
before they bring treatments to patients.
That early trial was suspended in 2014, and there’s still only ONE stem cell therapy
officially approved by the FDA -- bone marrow transplants to treat those with blood cancer.
Because bone marrow is where our stem cells live when we’re adults.
There are a ton more FDA-vetted clinical trials in the pipeline, but those are not fully-fledged
treatments yet--they’re just tests to see how it works, if it’s effective, and what
the side effects are so that researchers can go on to make a product or a procedure that
actually works.
The flood of ‘stem cell clinics’ that have been popping up all over the world, promising
to cure everything from blindness to joint damage to neurodegenerative disease, all share
one telltale sign--they charge patients for treatment.
Vulnerable people seeking cures to health ailments are paying companies large sums of
money to receive a treatment that’s not even at clinical trial stage.
In the FDA’s words, these are treatments with a worrisome lack of evidence that they
work, at all.
And they may actively be harmful.
See, most legitimate clinical trials of treatments like this will cover the costs of treatment
for the patient through the pharmaceutical company or a foundation, precisely for the
reason that it may not work, it’s not yet a fully developed treatment.
So paying for a ‘clinical trial’ can be warning flag number one.
Profit-oriented companies scamming sick people out of their money are taking advantage of
consumer confusion around this topic.
Stem cell science is in the news a lot because scientists are making incremental progress--but
this is happening in the lab, demonstrating how stem cells MAY be used in the FUTURE to
treat patients .
It’s a highly reported on topic because it’s an exciting one that could change the
future of medicine.
But science takes a long time.
So let’s get it straight: Embryonic stem cells are heavily regulated and hard to access,
but nothing is stopping faux treatment facilities from taking cells from a patient’s body
and turning them into stem cells--these are called induced pluripotent stem cells, or
IPSCs.
The Florida ‘clinic’ that blinded three women extracted the patients’ belly fat,
went through the process to turn that into stem cells, and then injected it into their
eyes.
The problem is IPSCs from fully-formed, adult tissue...can only turn into that tissue . Fat
stem cells can only turn into fat, so injecting them into an eye?!
IPSCs still do hold huge promise for repairing patients’ damaged tissue, and researchers
are always looking for ways to extract and multiply the stem cells we have as adults
that CAN turn into anything, because that would allow us to repair any damage on the
body --it’s just that there’s no legitimate treatment out there yet.
Scientific research like this is exciting and there’s a ton of it out there, and science
nerds like us are talking about it a lot because it’s really cool...but, as we’ve seen,
we need to be careful in HOW we talk about it.
The next time you see an ad online for a stem cell clinic promising a miracle cure, maybe
dig a little deeper.
There are some people who will take advantage of the hype around that basic research for
their own gain, making people believe that fully-fledged treatments are out there, even
though they’re really not.
Everyone, this is Maren!
Maren meet everyone.
Maren is new to the channel, she’s a science communicator and she’s super good at environmental
science,animal behavior, and biology…
You’ll be seeing her more on the channel, give her a warm welcome!
And check out this video about some recent exciting stem cell research developments,
but take a minute to think about how experiments like this are different from an actual treatment.
We think it’s just as important to talk about the realities of science as it is to
geek out over the flashy stuff, so subscribe if you think so too.
I’m Maren!
I’m Trace, thanks for watching Seeker!