Cue up the theme to COPS, put on your muumuu, and get ready for another round of science behind bars. Four people were arrested in Hungary late last month on charges of “suspicion on the banned use of a human body.” In other words, they were arrested for the illegal use of embryonic stem cells in up to a hundred individual treatments. The story has made its way around through Reuters and several conservative news feeds. What’s the deal here? Are we seeing a new trend in criminalizing health care? Is this a wide range attack on stem cell treatments? Perhaps, but not in the most obvious way.
One of the alleged criminals is a U.S. national, Yuliy Baltaytis (also given as Juliy B.) and all four were arrested for their roles in a small clinic in Budapest that offered stem cell treatments. Stem cell treatments are illegal and unlicensed in Hungary. So on one level this is just an arrest for unlicensed medical treatments. The same could happen if a pediatrician tried to perform neurosurgery. Working without the correct license is generally a crime no matter which country you’re in.
Of course, on another level, these arrests are indicative of a larger problem with stem cell treatments: demand is running ahead of government ability to regulate. “Stem cell” clinics are popping up all over Central Europe, South America, and Asia. Some are unlicensed, many don’t use stem cells at all, and most would likely have an extremely difficult time proving that their treatments really work. After all, the majority of stem cell use, embryonic or otherwise, is still in the clinical trial phase.
Those suffering from incurable or debilitating diseases, however, aren’t listening to that message. The desperately ill are willing to take any chance, even a long shot to get healthy again. Even knowing that most “miracle cures” out there are fraudulent, they will do anything to get them. Which is why the clinic in Budapest existed. Oh, I’m willing to admit there’s a possibility these four individuals had a viable treatment, but more than likely they were charlatans peddling useless “treatments” to hopeful people for extravagant sums. Undoubtedly their arrests are just the tip of the iceberg.
The longer it takes for real and tested stem cell treatments to become available, the more knock-off stem cell clinics we’ll see around the globe. Keep in mind that there are emerging treatment facilities in each of the regions I mentioned before that will be able to provide real health benefits to patients. Unfortunately, they may be lost in a sea of fakes and forgers that spring up before they can be established. In the United States we generally lack human stem cell treatments of any kind. A wave of foreign arrests and quack clinics will only further degrade the credibility of this type of research in the eyes of many Americans.
So what’s a government to do? First, keep cracking down on unlicensed or dubious medical facilities. Just because stem cell research and treatments have been oppressed and blacklisted doesn’t mean we can expose the public to unsafe conditions. Second, and this is really aimed at the U.S, get real stem cell treatments to the public! As we’ve mentioned before, it’s ridiculous that dogs can get stem cell treatments while humans cannot. Research has been stymied, and major breakthroughs in stem cell research are happening in Brazil, and China. Fortunately, most stem cell research is no longer illegal in the U.S., but a lot of the unnecessary bureaucracy around developing stem cells treatments still exists. The researchers are ready and willing, we need to provide them with the funding and leeway they need.
The real story out of Hungary isn’t that four people got arrested, but that up to a hundred people were willing to pay high sums for what they hoped might be cutting edge stem cell treatments. It’s entirely possible that such demand will always outstrip the ability for doctors to provide it. However, these arrests should still serve as a call to action for medical researchers the world over. We need to bring stem cell technology to the public soon. As long as stem cell treatments must remain a crime, only criminals will provide them.
Comments
Looks like selling snake oil will never go away…
In Ukraine, the Emcell center is treating many kinds of untreatable diseases by embryonic stem cells successfully. They have an experience of 6000 patients inculding senility, diabetes, heart failure, MS, Parkinsonism, AID’s, Alzheimer desease…etc.
They confirm that their patients achieved marked progress without developing any complications specially the liability to produce tumors because they use 4 – 8 weeks emberyonic cells not those of 1 – 2 weeks cells that have no control over their growth, and posses no antigenic structure that incite graft rejection.
I have seen myself some of those patients & they are very happy with the results.
Their web site is: http://www.emcell.com
In Ukraine, the Emcell center is treating many kinds of untreatable diseases by embryonic stem cells successfully. They have an experience of 6000 patients inculding senility, diabetes, heart failure, MS, Parkinsonism, AID’s, Alzheimer desease…etc.
They confirm that their patients achieved marked progress without developing any complications specially the liability to produce tumors because they use 4 – 8 weeks emberyonic cells not those of 1 – 2 weeks cells that have no control over their growth, and posses no antigenic structure that incite graft rejection.
I have seen myself some of those patients & they are very happy with the results.
Their web site is: http://www.emcell.com
Why is it that the religous right considers it murder to extract stem cells from embryos created in a laboratory , but it is perfectly alright for fertility clinics to create a dozen or so embryos and destroy all but one of them which is then implanted to produce an offspring ? It seems to me that if an embryo is equivilant to a human being , then murder is murder …no matter if the goal is to bring a baby into the world or cure diabetes . Can someone tell me why this is ? Can you say HYPOCRISY ?
Why is it that the religous right considers it murder to extract stem cells from embryos created in a laboratory , but it is perfectly alright for fertility clinics to create a dozen or so embryos and destroy all but one of them which is then implanted to produce an offspring ? It seems to me that if an embryo is equivilant to a human being , then murder is murder …no matter if the goal is to bring a baby into the world or cure diabetes . Can someone tell me why this is ? Can you say HYPOCRISY ?
Fortunately or Unfortunately depending on how you look at it other countries are making breakthroughs in technology and bio-tech. If the US doesn’t want/or can’t step up then other nations will. The question is how will they spread this new “knowledge wealth”?
Fortunately or Unfortunately depending on how you look at it other countries are making breakthroughs in technology and bio-tech. If the US doesn’t want/or can’t step up then other nations will. The question is how will they spread this new “knowledge wealth”?
“A wave of foreign arrests and quack clinics will only further degrade the credibility of this type of research in the eyes of many Americans.”
Probably the same Americans that have no problem spending all their money on snake oils from the health food store and internet.
It really saddens me to see people so damned desperate to live, told by our government that the treatments that pose so much potential good for them are evil tools of satanic babykillers, that they have to go to such places for even a glimmer of hope.
I fear that America’s pseudo-religious neophobia is going to be the death of our nascent empire.
“A wave of foreign arrests and quack clinics will only further degrade the credibility of this type of research in the eyes of many Americans.”
Probably the same Americans that have no problem spending all their money on snake oils from the health food store and internet.
It really saddens me to see people so damned desperate to live, told by our government that the treatments that pose so much potential good for them are evil tools of satanic babykillers, that they have to go to such places for even a glimmer of hope.
I fear that America’s pseudo-religious neophobia is going to be the death of our nascent empire.