Stem-cell tourism, what's a scientist to do?
Members of the scientific community should lobby regulatory authorities to regulate bogus stem-cell clinics, according to the latest policy forum in Science this week (subscription required). The piece calls out the claims and (lack of) evidence put forward by stem-cell clinics in countries “not known as leaders in biomedical research.”
The forum also urges the World Health Organisation to create a consensus statement on the clinical application of stem cell research. Individual scientists should help provide non-English translations of existing information, such as the patient handbook developed by the International Society for Stem Cell Research, which includes questions would-be stem cell tourists should ask clinics and physicians.
The authors of the forum, Doug Sipp of Japan’s RIKEN and Kyoto University and physician Sorapop Kiatpongsan of Chulalongkorn University of Bangkok and Harvard, published an earlier commentary with Nature Reports, in which they analysed the duties and motivations of patients, physicians, scientists, governments, and other stakeholders that act in this arena.
Though stem cell tourism operates outside the scientific mainstream, stem-cell scientists should care about it not just because patients can be harmed but because mishaps can cause mistrust of those clinicians who are struggling to meet regulatory requirements and established guidelines to move stem cell research to the clinic.
Here are some of our articles reporting on stem cell tourism and the scientific community’s actions and reactions toward it.
Stem cell researchers face down stem cell tourism
A variety of international efforts hope to warn patients off unregulated treatments
Stick to the guidelines and fewer get hurt
The ISSCR hopes its handbook will prompt regulators and governments to shut shady clinics
Unregulated stem cell transplant causes tumours
Researchers say cells were poorly characterized prior to transplantation
Stem cell clinical trials must be closely monitored
Results of unregulated stem cell transplant were predictable and avoidable
