The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), a group of established stem cell researchers concerned with the proliferation of unproven treatments, has issued a patient handbook on stem cell therapies. I am not seeing a traditional neurologist, and not taking standard medicine." 6 Warning Signs "It changed my direction and put me on the path I am on now. Still, she sees a different kind of value in it. After the second treatment, she says she felt "a slight improvement, and then I settled into the same condition I had been in." Bone marrow drained from her leg was injected directly into her spine, into her muscle, and infused into her bloodstream.Īfter her first visit, she felt more energetic, although she was disappointed that her condition didn't improve much. In Tijuana, Gusty got heavy metal chelation, growth hormone shots, drugs to stimulate the production of blood cells, and chemotherapy. "I was being treated by the book, but I am not a textbook case of MS," Gusty tells WebMD. She had gone looking for something better than what her U.S.
Still, Gusty, of Kingston Springs, Tenn., isn't second-guessing herself. Twice, her care there was completely out of step with accepted medical care for her multiple sclerosis. Twice, Dawn Gusty paid $27,000 for stem cell treatments at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. Famous athletes and politicians have sought the treatments. "A lot of companies are claiming they can do things right now the science can't support," Levine says.īut it's happening anyway. Levine, PhD, a Georgia Institute of Technology bioethics professor, agrees. People who pursue those treatments "are spending huge sums of money to get therapies that are completely unproven and unlikely to work," Hare says.Īaron D. and around the world touting stem cell treatments for conditions ranging from baldness to ALS ( Lou Gehrig's disease). The danger becomes clear if you Google "stem cell treatment." You'll get search results from clinics in the U.S. His concern, he says, is "hype" that glosses over an inconvenient fact: There are no new approved stem cell therapies. Make no mistake: Hare is all for scientific stem cell research. "It is a very dangerous situation," says Joshua Hare, MD, director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami. And it's one of the most alarming for stem cell experts. That moment - when hope surpasses science, and when someone claims to be able to bridge that gap - may be one of the riskiest for patients to handle. Even though the stem cell treatments Dawn Gusty got in Tijuana, Mexico, didn't ease her multiple sclerosis, she doesn't look back with regret. "We were suckered into one of the earlier forms of stem cell chicanery."īut not everyone who seeks unapproved stem cell treatments feels ripped off. "The Internet, while increasing communication, has spawned a horde of charlatans and creeps," Byer says. Why take the chance? For Byer, it started with misleading promises online. So did the ALS patients Byer now regrets helping get the treatment. The unproven procedure could have killed Ben. He took Ben to China for stem cell-like trea tments, and later helped hundreds of people do the same, believing it would help them. Stephen Byer stepped far outside typical medical care when his son, Ben, had ALS. There's a dark side to stem cells: bogus treatments that prey on patients' hopes when mainstream medicine has little to offer.
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