For the past decade stem cells have sparked huge excitement among scientists, dramatic media coverage about breakthroughs that could mean a cure for some of the nastiest diseases and hope — sometimes desperate — among patients that the reality will match the hype.
That has fuelled a booming trade in stem-cell tourism — people heading to clinics abroad and forking out large sums for what are called stem-cell treatments, but that are unlikely to work and may possibly do harm. It is, as British stem-cell experts warned last week, a world of unproved therapies, patient optimism and predatory clinicians.
Despite the lack of reliable evidence underpinning the treatments being offered, the number of people resorting to stem-cell tourism is growing. Experts voiced their fears and frustrations after finding that many patients, often desperately ill, were asking their advice on whether to travel overseas.
“I’ve made some very strong comments that could potentially land me in court, but people still go to these clinics,” said Professor Peter Coffey, director of the London Project to Cure Blindness at University College London. There are now several hundred clinics around the world claiming to have turned the potential of stem cells into effective treatments.
They lure those suffering from diabetes, multiple sclerosis, heart failure, Parkinson’s disease, autism, HIV, eye problems, spinal-cord injuries and much else besides. Several thousand people from around the world so far are estimated to have spent up to £20 000 or more in such places.
Yet, although stem cells could transform medicine, there is as yet scant proof of their efficacy. But still the tourists come. Despite scientists saying it is likely to be 15 to 20 years before the continuing worldwide trials and tests result in reliable treatments, this has not stopped clinics from offering exactly that already.
Strong regulation means there are no such places in the United Kingdom or the United States. But the experts did single out the XCell Centre in Düsseldorf, Germany, and Beike Technology, which runs one in Shenzhen in China.
In 2008 the Multiple Sclerosis Society warned sufferers not to be taken in by a company registered in the Turks and Caicos Islands with offices in the Seychelles, Persian Gulf and Oxford, because there was no scientific backing for the claim that stem cells could cure the condition.
People’s willingness to trust their savings and their health to such clinics recently prompted the International Society for Stem Cell Research to launch a website to educate patients about the risks involved. Anyone thinking about going would be well advised to check it out and think again. —