Slashdot Mirror
Stem Cell Tourists Take Costa Rica Off the Agenda
An anonymous reader writes "Stem cell tourism is a booming and troubling industry, in which clinics in places like Mexico, China, and India offer rich tourists experimental stem-cell-based treatments, none of which have been approved by the FDA here in the US. (Check out some of these creepy sites that offer treatments for everything from autism to MS, and even the 'very common ailment called aging.') But in one positive development, Costa Rica just shut down its top stem cell clinic. Said the country's health minister, 'This isn't allowed in any serious country in the world.'"
The problem is not with people taking risks(well, that bothers the nanny-staters almost as much as the source of the stem cells bothers the godbots; but that isn't a big deal); but with how the sellers are representing the risks. Competent individuals choosing to take risks, or not, is freedom. Hucksters misrepresenting risks to desperate sick people is somewhere between fraud and manslaughter, depending on how it goes.
Don't tell that to someone with Gastroparesis. The FDA being influenced by large drug companies (especially the manufacturer of Reglan, the approved drug in the US) won't approve the the drug that is used in EVERY other industrialized country to treat this condition, Domperidone. A big part of that reason is lobbing. And the side effects of reglan is just plan scary.
Admit-tingly, the FDA does it job in general. But it is also a poster child of political influences and represents why government intervention in health care can be bad.