A study reveals the extent of the abuses of certain American clinics, which use cell therapies not authorized by the American drug agency.
Whether they realize it or not, some desperate patients take risks, with the help of American doctors, in the name of business. In the United States, a study published in Cell Stem Cell reveals that 570 clinics provide stem cell-based care that has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The researchers responsible for the study add that in addition to these clinics, some 350 companies would directly sell these experimental treatments, the effectiveness of which has not been proven and which could prove to be potentially dangerous.
Uncontrolled growth
“This market is exploding before our eyes and I don’t think we were aware of its scope and size,” reacts Leigh Turner, author of the survey and member of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. One can wonder how this activity could have known such a boom in the United States, where treatments based on stem cells and the medical instruments that produce them are supposed to be regulated by the authorities ”.
The clinics offering them are particularly established in California, and 18 are notably present in Beverly Hills, the wealthy district of Los Angeles. But it would be possible to access these “therapies” in all American states. The researchers identified 104 establishments in Florida, 71 in Texas and 21 in New York City.
The FDA is worried about the false hopes that could be conveyed by therapies based on non-validated stem cells, whose “effectiveness and safety” remain to be demonstrated, its spokesperson, Andrea Fisher, told AFP. These haphazard therapies would make patients “vulnerable to unscrupulous companies or individuals, providers of care containing stem cells that are illegal and potentially dangerous.”
Patience, a medical virtue
Just a few days ago, the New England Journal of Medicine had revealed the case of a patient suffering from the after-effects of a stroke, who had used experimental treatments based on embryonic stem cells in China, Argentina and Mexico. He had developed a tumor which resulted in his paraplegia.
“It is no longer necessary for Americans to go to Mexico, for example,” explained Paul Knoepfler, researcher at the University of California and co-author of this survey. This reflects a change from the typical medical tourism seeking treatment with stem cells ”.
This type of therapy has a promising future for a wide variety of diseases, in particular for neurological, pulmonary, bone or cardiac pathologies. But research takes time, and the risks are still great. This kind of illegal activity could tarnish progress. Similarly, the death of an 18-year-old American in 1999 had delayed advances in gene therapy for many years.
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