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."

Comments

Re:So what?

[dr. chuck bunsen]

That is a really funny name for a hospital. Are they all graduates of Bum Runs University? Also, when the focal point of your homepage is "Why Trust Us", then I don't trust you.

Re:Aim for the real problem.

[ProfessionalCookie]

I always thought that if there was any doubt that someone wasn't a person it best to opt on the side of not killing them, even to help someone else.

Given that there's nothing magical or particularly spiritual about birth canals it seems like the safest date ethically (to avoid all doubt) to is conception.

Why? Because that's when those cells become a genetically unique entity, that if left to nature will continue to grow into something that is universally recognized as a person.

And I'll just give you some preemptive food for thought:

• A nursing baby is also not able to sustain its life on its own.
• Is the personhood of a handicapped person reduced?
• There is a difference between leaving something to live and leaving something to die, it's not a point, it's a vector!

Of course the other possibly legitimate viewpoint is that personhood has no value or is just entirely a social construct that is actually meaningless. If you believe that then it doesn't matter where along the timeline you terminate a baby, much less a grown human.

Perhaps your lack of care for some genetically unique cells that were headed in the direction of birth destroyed countless real, living, actualized human beings, who may have not yet been self-aware (but headed that way) possibly not even a name, but never the less untold potential and millions who mourn them.