Tag: stem cells
Stem Cell Therapy for Autism
If you are a parent of a young child with autism (especially level 2 or 3, requiring significant support), the promise of a cure or even an effective treatment is irresistible. This is exactly why there needs to be science-based regulatory standards – to protect vulnerable patients and their loved-ones. RFK Jr., however, wants to weaken these protections – even removing from...
In Animal Study, Nanobots Repair Spinal Cords
For my entire career as a neurologist the ability to repair an injured spinal cord has been one of the holy grails. There has always been promising new research that definitely increases our knowledge but doesn’t lead to an effective treatment. This is not for lack of trying – I also remember the period when Christopher Reeve was a tireless promoter of...
Stem Cell Stroke Therapy
We have written quite a bit about fraudulent stem cell clinics. They have followed a typical pattern of overhyping new potential therapies, with some clinics going as far as selling fake stem cell treatments. Stem cells were a likely target – they sound extremely advanced, their potential is easy to understand, and you can use them to justify extreme claims of healing....
Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad embrace a “more fluid concept of evidence” at the FDA
Last Thursday during a roundtable on stem cell therapies, new FDA Commissioner Marty Makary referred to EBM levels of evidence as an artificial and dogmatic construct. Apparently Dr. David Katz's "more fluid concept of evidence" now reigns at the FDA—selectively.
Complete Human Embryo Model Made From Stem Cells
Researchers create an embryo model from human embryonic stem cells.
The Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study (SCOTS): Part 2
Today we continue an analysis of a dubious stem cell clinical trial, with an examination of the clinic and personnel involved.
The Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study
In this study we have 300 patients with 47 different diseases subject to 7 experimental treatments among 3 treatment groups and no control group. What could possibly go right?
Dubious stem cell trials for autism and the darker side of quackademic medicine
Despite a lack of evidence, Duke University is all-in on stem cells for autism, thanks to a billionaire benefactor and a highly dodgy for-profit Panama stem cell clinic. How did this come to be and what will be the outcome? Whatever the answers to these questions, it is clear that arrangements like the one between Duke University and The Stem Cell Institute...
Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin versus COVID-19: Grift, conspiracy theories, and another bad study by Didier Raoult
On Friday, Prof. Didier Raoult posted another study of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine used against COVID-19. It is a single arm observational study of patients with mostly mild (or even asymptomatic) disease that is painfully uninformative with respect to the question of this treatment's effectiveness. That didn't stop America's Quack Dr. Oz and other grifters from touting Raoult's study, as well as a...
Cardiac Stem Cell Transplant
A new study helps put the state of stem cell research into context.