Stem Cell Successes?

Stem Cell Successes?

Indian officials are concerned about an Indian clinic which claims to have helped 100 people with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and paralysis. The treatment was done with embryonic stem cells. The Indian government said that the protocols of stem cell therapy and the operation details need to be developed so that research and treatment takes place effectively and “quackery” is not tolerated. The clinic released a compilation of the case studies, done over the last 5 years, and the clinic director said that Indian Council of Medical Research had the opportujnity to review the cases before the therapies were started. The news, reported on Rediff.com and in The Statesman, focuses on the expressed need for guidelines and does not give any results of the treatments. MedIndia reported today that a committee will be set up to begin work on these guidelines.

Meanwhile, The Scotsman reported on a 19 year old woman with multiple sclerosis who was treated with umbilical cord stem cells at a clinic in the Netherlands. She has been in a wheelchair for over a year and said that she now finds it much easier to get in and out of the wheelchair and can walk with limited support. A spokesman for the Multiple Sclerosis Society said,

The potential for stem cell therapy to repair the damage caused in multiple sclerosis is well recognised. In view of possible risks, we believe that great caution is needed when considering any unorthodox treatment which has not been subjected to rigorous trials and review.

And that goes for me, too. These clinical treatments may have been effective, but I wouldn’t recommend that anyone who is not already terminally ill get treatment with any medical procedure until it has been through a rigorous approval process or as part of a carefully supervised clinical trial. Anecdotal successes are not the same as a double-blind study.