Unproven stem cell interventions: A global public health problem requiring global deliberation
By Zubin Master, Kirstin R.W. Matthews, and Mohamed Abou-el-Enein,
Stem Cell Reports
| 06. 08. 2021
The unproven stem cell intervention (SCI) industry is a global health problem. Despite efforts of some nations, the industry continues to flourish. In this paper, we call for a global approach and the establishment of a World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Advisory Committee on Regenerative Medicine to tackle this issue and provide guidance. The WHO committee can harmonize national regulations; promote regulatory approaches responsive to unmet patient needs; and formulate an education campaign against misinformation. Fostering an international dialog and developing recommendations that can be adopted by member states would effectively address the global market of unproven SCIs.
Main text
The unproven stem cell intervention (SCI) industry is used to describe a worldwide, direct-to-consumer market where clinics offer stem cells, stem cell-derived components, such as exosomes and non-stem cell-based cellular products to patients with little to no scientific or clinical basis (Turner, 2020; U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2019). The application of unproven SCIs to consumers has led to multiple patient injuries and deaths (Bauer et al., 2018), and the industry threatens legitimate research efforts (...
Related Articles
By Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times | 04.09.2024
A decade ago, researcher Haruko Obokata caused a sensation when she published two papers in the journal Nature, in which she claimed that she had discovered a way to create stem cells easily using the so-called STAP method.
With STAP...
By Ian Sample, The Guardian | 03.08.2024
Scientists are a step closer to making IVF eggs from patients’ skin cells after adapting the procedure that created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, more than two decades ago.
The work raises the prospect of older women being...
By Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Guardian | 02.28.2024
Doctors say a man in California who contracted blood cancer while living with HIV is in remission from both potentially fatal illnesses thanks to a treatment they are hailing as remarkable and encouraging.
Paul Edmonds is only the fifth-known person...
By Victoria Gray, Uduak Thomas, and Kevin Davies, The CRISPR Journal | 02.14.2024
In July 2019, medical staff in Nashville dosed the first U.S. patient in the exa-cel therapy trial, sponsored by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics. That first patient was Victoria Gray, a mother of four from Forest, Mississippi, a sickle cell...