Guess where.
Burning question: Is there room to add the Donald?
People will attempt to make money out of anything. Apparently there are over 300 “laboratories”
scattered about the country that will “treat” your ailment using stem cells, They (purportedly) remove stem cells* from a sample
of your tissue (blood, fat, mucus, who knows), cultivate them in vitro, then feed them back into your
ailing body – all, of course, for a whopping
fee. Some anecdotal successes are noted; however, some such enterprises have been forced to flee the country. The FDA is in hot pursuit. The bottom line: read these two articles
and consult an expert before you send off your package of bottled
spit wrapped in a big fat check.
Of course, this is not to say that legitimate stem cell
therapy is doomed to expensive failure.
Far from it: induced pluripotent stem cells are a hot item in medical
research. It is possible to “reverse”
the differentiation of (some? all?) human cells, in effect turning them back
into pluripotent stem cells that are capable of becoming almost anything in the human body. Theoretically,
these induced stem cells can be used – somehow – to repair and/or replace human
biological malfunctions. Legitimate
scientific projects to do this are underway.
Legitimate clinical trials presumably are underway, or will be
soon. Again, consult an expert. And don't look ,at me..
*These are not pluripotent stem cells. Rather, they have differentiated into narrow specialization:
for instance, stem cells in bone marrow can produce red blood cells but nothing
else. Even cancers are said to have stem
cells, for Christ’s sake! Another of
nature’s bad ideas.
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