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.'"

Comments

Darn

[Locke2005]

I wonder if this will have any effect on Rush Limbaugh's decision to move to Costa Rica.

Not so fast

[ascari]

Is that really all bad? Charlatans over the centuries have provided a very valuable commodity: Hope. The people who go on these pilgrimages have basically been told "You're fucked" by the prevailing medical establishment, but refuse to accept it. So by closing down these clinics we're basically saying "Dammit, we told you you're fucked, be still and die!" Should we really enforce a strict separation of health care and religion (in the very broadest sense of the word) especially when we know that there is such a thing as a very powerful placebo effect? If somebody terminally ill wants to spend their money on this or on a big donation to a charity or church or whatever because it gives them hope it's perfectly fine with me.

(Besides, who know what might work: "Mom, Dr Fleming told me to eat mold..." :-)