A week ago, William Shatner Tweeted that he had received an anti-aging stem cell therapy. Perusal of the website of the clinic where he got the cells reveals yet another for-profit dubious stem cell clinic. Is
William Shatner the new stem cell clinic pitchman?
Katie Britton-Jordan was a young woman with a treatable breast cancer. Instead of science-based medical care, she embarked on a vegan diet and a cornucopia of quackery. Now she is dead, because these treatments don’t work.
For-profit stem cell clinics selling unproven and downright quacky stem cell therapies have proliferated over the last several years, with federal and state law seemingly powerless to stop them. Recently, the FDA and FTC have shown signs of acting to crack down on them. Now, the Medical Board of California is forming a task force to determine how to regulate physicians offering these unproven therapies. Will it matter?
Suzanne Somers is back in the news, claiming that she “grew a new breast” with stem cells and fat transfer. But did she? Did she really? A careful look at what’s public about her story suggests nothing other than a bit of self-promotion during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Last Sunday, 60 MINUTES Australia broadcast a story about a very sympathetic girl with cerebral palsy and her family, who traveled to Bioss Stem Cells, a stem cell clinic in Monterrey, Mexico, for unproven “stem cell” treatments. The story was nearly completely devoid of skepticism and played, in essence, as a 20 minute advertisement for quacks. It is one of the worst examples of boosterism and false balance about unproven treatments I’ve ever seen.
