Stem Cells: Taking a Stand Against Pseudoscience

Scientists get the most satisfaction from working long hours at the bench with like-minded colleagues, but sometimes their duty lies elsewhere, even if it means missing grant deadlines and receiving threatening letters. When lax clinical standards endangered Italy's health-care system and patients, we were among those who left the comfort of our labs and offices to fight for evidence to prevail.

Since its creation in 2009, the Stamina Foundation, a private organization in Italy, has been claiming that stem cells collected from human bone marrow can be transformed into neural cells by exposure to retinoic acid, an important molecule in embryonic development. Stamina's founder Davide Vannoni, who has not trained as a scientist or physician, holds that injections with these cells can treat conditions as diverse as Parkinson's disease, muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy. He has not published in the peer-reviewed literature. (PubMed searches for Vannoni with the key words 'stem cell' or 'neuron' return nothing.) He has moved his laboratory around and outside Italy, stating a desire to work where regulations are less strict.

Multiple scientists...