Influential Scientific Journal Rips Effort to Loosen Stem Cell Research Rules
By David Jensen,
California Stem Cell Report
| 07. 05. 2016
The prestigious journal
Nature today editorialized against easing federal regulation of stem cell treatments, a major blow to the campaign by the California stem cell agency to speed such therapies to the marketplace.
The headline on the piece said,
"FDA should stand firm on stem cell treatments."
The
unsigned editorial declared that those who contend that the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is holding back "effective therapies" are peddling a false narrative. Nature declared,
"The claim that regulation is too harsh wrongly implies that the FDA is holding back therapies that work. Critics point to decades of preclinical and clinical work with stem cells and the pipelines of stem-cell treatments. With circular logic, they argue that, because the treatments have not been approved, there is something wrong with the approval system."
The $3 billion California stem cell agency has been lobbying for months for changes in FDA regulation.
Randy Mills, president of the
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM) as the agency is formally known,
said back in December that "patients are dying" because the FDA is being "so careful...
Related Articles
By Alondra Nelson, Science | 09.11.2025
In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months have made visible the stakes of the unchecked use...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
By Johana Bhuiyan, The Guardian | 09.23.2025
In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which...
By Julie Métraux, Mother Jones | 09.23.2025