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Stem Cell Tourist Dies From Treatment In Thailand
An anonymous reader writes "Last week, news that Costa Rica was shutting down a large stem cell clinic sparked a debate here on Slashdot about whether patients should be allowed to take the risks that come with untested treatments. Now comes news of what can happen when patients go looking for a shortcut. A patient suffering from an autoimmune disease that was destroying her kidneys went to a Bangkok clinic, where doctors injected her own adult stem cells into her kidneys. Now she's dead, and a postmortem revealed that the sites of injection had weird growths — 'tangled mixtures of blood vessels and bone marrow cells.' Researchers say the treatment almost certainly killed her."
It was her choice, she decided to take the risk. Adults make decisions about their own life (or death).
You see? This is the reality of our time. Ignorance and stupidity prevents science from advancing proper. Instead people have to go to dodgy places to get some form of treatment often provided by complete shams.
None of this would be happening if working with stem cells and bioengineering proper was legalized at large.
For example, I have terminal cancer, although for now I feel fine. The doctors know that none of the FDA approved treatments will stop the cancer, the best they can do is slow it down some. If I saw a treatment that had a high risk of killing me, but a decent chance it would cure me, I'd go for it, even knowing it might kill me.
When you have different groups advertising conflicting "scientific" results for their own interests, it is no wonder the layman doesn't believe in science anymore. Burn the businessmen!
Eggs have less cholesterol than previously thought! We both know the world is and isn't global warming. We are/aren't on the verge of running out of oil. We have conclusive evidence that cell phones do and don't cause cancer. Pluto is no longer a planet! This is the face of science to many people.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Agreed. But the least you could do is review the accreditation of the people involved in the medical community. Not something that sounds like a corner tattoo parlor shop.
Life is not for the lazy.
I only wish the words "tangled mixtures" weren't in the summary. Now I'm going to spend the better part of a day desperately trying not to think about that.
Scientists and doctors are often trained not to overstate conclusions, since things are never certain. Which is partially why creationists can say "It's just a theory" and rather than just say "You're wrong and an idiot" scientists usually start explaining how they're mostly wrong, and by the third paragraph, anyone undecided lost interest and decided evolution was just a theory.
In this case, you could hypothesize that she may have been the first known victim of an extremely rare disease, independant from the lupus, that would have killed her with growths on her kidney even without the injections. Sure, that's unlikely, occam's razor comes to mind, but it would be overstating it to say it is 100% certain to be the cause. You might be able to do a test that would make it more certain, but why waste the time, it's certain enough not to suggest not doing what these "doctors" did.
I'm a physician (I know, easy for an AC to say). There is nothing in the linked article to suggest that the treatment was directly linked to her death. It may or may not have contributed to her eventual renal failure but there are an untold number of people out there with nonfunctioning kidneys living for years on dialysis. Unusual tumors localized to the kidneys don't kill people. While I don't encourage patients to pursue treatments lacking in evidence of safety and efficacy, this article is just meant to spread FUD.
You appear to be advocating "protecting terminally ill patients from themselves". Seeing as how they are already terminally ill that seems just a bit silly. Who better to experiment on than a terminally patient with nothing to lose who is willing to give it a shot?
Our health care choices are already far too restricted -- ever notice how the word "prescription", which actually means "recommendation" is used as if it means "license"? If you need a substance but the witch doctors who represent Big Pharma say you don't you can be imprisoned for posessing it -- now that's real insanity!
Caveat Utilitor
Gee, I think she died of freedom of choice.
Researchers say the treatment almost certainly killed her
And, without treatment? Nature would have taken it's course... I'd say let people try what they want (assuming the treatment is not a total scam.)
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. - Redd Foxx
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The term "macroevolution" frequently arises within the context of the evolution/creation debate, usually used by creationists alleging a significant difference between the evolutionary changes observed in field and laboratory studies and the larger scale macroevolutionary changes that scientists believe to have taken thousands or millions of years to occur. They may accept that evolutionary change is possible within species ("microevolution"), but deny that one species can evolve into another ("macroevolution"). Contrary to this belief among the anti-evolution movement proponents, evolution of life forms beyond the species level ("macroevolution", i.e. speciation in a specific case) has indeed been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature.
Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science. By your logic gravity is also "only a theory". I invite you to step off the roof, because being only a theory, gravity might not affect you.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
What's interesting is how you extol the virtues of tai chi as a form of detox, and then go on to talk about "crazy biopirates" in the same breath.
What's interesting is how you are devious enough in trying to find a logical flaw where there is none. Tai chi, Yoga and other form of slow-mo exercises are good for dealing with impaired motor skills. That you assumed he was talking about esoteric hocus pocus says more about yourself than the poster.
Someone with an otherwise certainly terminal illness took a chance on experimental treatment, that ended up killing them.
And WHAT is wrong with this?
It's bad enough when people want to be my mom when I prefer to volunteer on unnecessary risks, but in cases like this leave them alone. sheesh. Like you'd prefer to force them to sit at home and die. What's it to you, and what gives you the right?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
There used to be this place where you could do almost anything you wanted, as long as it didn't hurt anyone else. It was called America.
Nowdays though, it caters to people "who know better" and want to tax, then remove, fast food, salt, light bulbs, toilets and spray cans from our lives. These are called Progressives; the opposite of Conservatives, which *used*to*be*found* in republican ranks, but not so much, during the Bush years.
In that place, we were permitted to take a hair dryer into the shower with us. We could eat building materials. We could eat food that had never been to 160 degrees. It was wonderful: no one spooking around the house or setting up lawsuits. I know it was wonderful: I was there!
Now, I don't expect that Thailand will have better medical practices, but it's from the low number of people (0) who've told me "Wow, that Thailand- a heart valve in the morning, and child sex at night!" :>
But why would *anyone* stop this?
There's an argument of going someplace to kill one's self: clearly the person's so emotionally wrecked, it's probably not in their best interest, etc.
But to stop someone from going elsewhere for a procedure? Is the UN trying to stop things like this? This just makes no sense.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
You appear to be advocating "protecting terminally ill patients from themselves". Seeing as how they are already terminally ill that seems just a bit silly. Who better to experiment on than a terminally patient with nothing to lose who is willing to give it a shot?
Why is it silly? Even if someone is terminally ill, there's a duty to try to extended a quality life for them. Even terminally ill patients that opt for medical trials are given state of the art care. They're not given placebo or Formula-409. They're given best-treatment-plus-placebo or best-treatment-plus-Forumula-409. What you're arguing for is the recklessness and effectiveness of snake oil salesmen, homeopathy, and herbal supplements. ("If Extenze didn't do something amazing could we afford to give it away?" Well yes. Your costs would be negligible. Sales do not necessarily correlate with efficacy.)
Our health care choices are already far too restricted -- ever notice how the word "prescription", which actually means "recommendation" is used as if it means "license"? If you need a substance but the witch doctors who represent Big Pharma say you don't you can be imprisoned for posessing it -- now that's real insanity!
Well no. Given that serious risks and side effects involved, there's no reason why a untrained person, especially an fool that believes that their lack expertise and training means they know better than experts should treat themselves. If you want to do that, by all means, cure your infections with a big swig of bleach or some other antibacterial cleaner.
There are rational reasons for the restrictions of some drugs. Anti-biotics being one. If you allow the public to self diagnose their aliments then sure some small group of people who would have otherwise been sick longer will get better more quickly, that is until you start building up an army of resistant microbes at which point many people become at a much higher risk. Sorry but there are things that, when you only look at one person, seem to make sense but when looked at from a broader perspective can have catastrophic consequences.
*cough*
"The full title is Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects and it is an annexe to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949."
It's somewhat regrettable to debunk your "debunking". You had quite a bit of momentum and righteous indignation in your rant; it sounds like you have had some practice spreading this particular bit of misinformation. My guess would be that you took the common misattribution of the dumdum bullets ban to the Geneva Convention and turned it into this sweeping generalization.
Reminds me of when I used to tell people that microwave ovens operated at a resonant frequency of water, repeating what my engineering prof told us in class. Ouch... there were quite a few people I had to go around and issue a retraction to. (FYI: 2.4 GHz has absolutely nothing special wrt water--resonance, dielectric, or otherwise)
As long as someone says it, it must be true!
If they say it, and they've obviously done it, then it just might be true.
Then that makes it, almost by definition, faith.
It's not faith when you've got a very strong piece of evidence staring you in the face.
but the reasons you cite are not really valid scientific evidence.
That means absolutely nothing. Evidence, by itself, is never scientific. It's the repetition and measurement that are scientific.
His reasons are based on observation that his instructor is extremely fit at an age where most men are very feeble, and his own recovery has been excellent. There is no faith there, it's based on observation. According to you, there is no scientific evidence that people can read. I mean, just because someone says reading is how they extract information out of a book doesn't make it true right? Must all be faith, right?
Did he use modern scientific methodologies? No, of course not. But to say it's faith because he didn't is flat out idiotic. No fact is scientific. Ever. A fact is a fact. It is either true or it isn't. An observation is simply an observation, there is nothing in the world that makes one observation scientific and another observation non-scientific. Science is the process of generating and confirming theories about observations. Nothing more. We see X. We want to know why X exists. So we test X, and come up with theories, which should fit the pattern X gives us. If X changes (we observe something new) and the theory doesn't fit, then the science was wrong.
In other words, you're completely fucking wrong, you idiot retard.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I'm not knocking medical care in Thailand, but there is a difference between "quality medical care" and "bleeding edge treatments." It's entirely possible to be good at the former but not good at the latter.