Peddling unproven treatments, stem cell industry ‘fleeces,’ sometimes harms patients
Years later, after several more complaints, the Food and Drug Administration took U.S. Stem Cell to court and forced the company to stop its eye injections. But by then the for-profit stem cell industry had spread like a virus, despite warnings from medical researchers and bioethics experts that the clinics are peddling unproven, sometimes dangerous treatments for anything from mild arthritis to erectile dysfunction to multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
“The companies are making a killing off of all of us that have creaky knees and bad elbows and throwing injuries,” said Christopher Scott, a medical ethics expert at the Baylor College of Medicine who has studied the for-profit stem cell industry. “They are basically fleecing people for thousands of dollars for these interventions that simply don’t work. And they do it because they can.”
