Hype, Money and Stem Cells

Posted by Pete Shanks April 9, 2015
Biopolitical Times

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times used newly published research by Kalina Kamenova and Timothy Caulfield [abstract] to write a scathing article largely focused on the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM):

New study: Stem cell field is infected with hype

This conclusion is scarcely novel, but both the academic analysis and the polemical journalistic commentary are welcome. The researchers examined "the portrayal of translational stem cell research in major daily newspapers in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom between 2010 and 2013" and found that optimistic perspectives outnumbered pessimistic ones by more than five to one, with less than a third of the reports being neutral.

Kamenova and Caulfield conclude by essentially pinning the responsibility on scientists for "authoritative statements … regarding unrealistic timelines." Hiltzik, on the other hand, "wouldn't give journalists this much of a pass," noting their complicity in exaggerating promises of breakthroughs and cures.

In fact, there is plenty of criticism to spread around.

There are also long-term effects of stem-cell hype. Many people are still predisposed to believe hucksters — and why wouldn't they be? Weren't we promised cures a decade ago?

Blog comments reveal that some people now think that the pharmaceutical multinationals are in cahoots with the FDA to prevent treatments from becoming available. (The discussion at this post, in which Paul Knoepfler explains the need for regulation, is one of the better threads.) It is therefore hardly surprising that desperate patients are willing to travel to Mexico, or the Philippines, or the Bahamas, or elsewhere, and to spend thousands of dollars on what are almost certainly placebos at best.

The stem cell hucksters and frauds have become so blatant and widespread that a number of prominent figures and organizations in the field have begun working hard to counter them. This is a welcome development. But the researchers, biotech entrepreneurs, patient advocates and others who puffed the possibilities of stem cells, perhaps most egregiously in the Prop. 71 campaign that led to CIRM, never seem to admit responsibility for the fantasies they did so much to promote.

What may draw their attention is that increased funding for CIRM, as David Jensen notes, is looking unlikely:

The agency has undoubtedly made a major contribution to stem cell science. But the unfulfilled promises of the campaign hype gave its foes the kind of tools they need to battle any efforts to provide more state funding for the agency.

Meanwhile, governments around the world are also beginning to wrestle with the details of regulating stem cell clinics. It's about time.

Previously on Biopolitical Times: