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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."
You assume she knew the risks, when it's very possible the scientists themselves didn't understand all of the risks. They also may not have disclosed the known risks.
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.
No bridge is necessary. The religious freaks are flat out fucking wrong. There is nothing wrong with using someones own stem cells to attempt to cure them, and only outrageous stupidity/subhumanism could make such a claim.
To a nontrivial(though, certainly, not wholly comprehensive) degree, this system already exists de facto.
First, you have FDA-approved drugs, treatments, and devices. Then, you have clinical trials of drugs, treatments, and devices hoping to join the first category; but not yet there.
This latter category recruits trial subjects from either the public at large(for the safety/tolerability portion of the studies) or from the patient pool for whatever the condition is(for the efficacy portion). This means that, in practice, a fair number of patients(weighted toward those for whom the FDA-approved stuff isn't cutting it) are taking experimental, unapproved, therapies, with effort being made to minimize the danger; but with the recognition that this isn't without its risks. Now, it is true that not everyone who wants to can necessarily get into a given trial. Some are just size-limited. In other cases, the group running the trial might be cherry-picking patients to try to get the results they want(ie. if you drug kills a bunch of people, or fails to cure, your odds of FDA approval go down. This creates an incentive to keep the hopeless cases away.)
There is also the intermediate category of off-label use. Once something is FDA-approved, doctors are not required to use it only for whatever it was originally approved for(the manufacturer can't market it for any unapproved use; but doctors are free to prescribe it for pretty much whatever they deem suitable, subject only to the risk of this being declared "malpractice").
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.
Maybe you don't understand how desperate a person can get when they're faced with something "incurable". Back in the 90's, I had lymphoma and thought my goose was cooked. I was lucky enough to be part of a drug trial for a medicine that is routinely used to treat the disease. Of course, it was an excellent university hospital that was doing the trial, and they gave me the very best care, not some third-world biopirate lab. I guess it was caught early enough and I was very very lucky because it's been 13 years now without a recurrence and now I'm healthy as Secretariat on his best day. I've come to believe that it wasn't as dire as I thought it was when I was diagnosed, but I was sure I was a goner at the time. Once the doc said "cancer" I couldn't hear a word and just saw my own death. The chemo was a fucking nightmare and it's taken a decade of tai chi to undo some of the neurotoxicity. Looking back I sort of sleepwalked through the ordeal, but if I'd been faced with early death or some crazy bio-soup from Thailand, I'm not sure I wouldn't roll the dice, even against big odds. I remember "helpful" family members talking to me about faith healers and shit and thank god it didn't come to me making that kind of decision.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Adult stem cells have been studied for 40 years. Embryonic stem cells have been studied for 12. Adult stem cell therapies are limited to blood disorders (mostly bone marrow transplants).
New ASC therapies are in trials using manipulation techniques learned from ESC research, but simply nothing can match the pluripotency of ESCs. Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (ipSCs) are fine for research but due to the induction methods and production efficiency issues are wholly unsuitable for therapies.
The "market for dead babies" line is just so much inflammatory ignorant bullshit. The lines are generated from surplus material which would otherwise be discarded.
Yes, you are flat out wrong.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
It should be noted for those that didn't RTFA that this case was more of a cause of bad clinic than a bad procedure.
According to the article, patients with similar kidney issues in a clinical trial in which bone marrow stem cells were injected into the blood stream showed marked improvements.
This clinic, on the other hand, injected these cells directly into the kidney rather than into her blood stream, causing the adult stem cells to try to build blood vessels in her kidney when they should have injected the stem cells into her bloodstream.
So, in other words, had the clinic done what the had been at least moderately successful in previous trials rather than haphazardly throw their own spin onto it, the patient would likely have been fine.
Not as a form of detox, friend, but as a way to help me get my balance back. I had gotten to the point where I couldn't put a pair of socks on or tie my shoes without sitting down. I'd get dizzy walking up a flight of stairs.
The chemo made me weak, damaged my immune system, my stamina. Tai Chi has helped out a lot. As a form of exercise, tai chi, like other martial arts, is terrific. It's not about healing disease, it's about feeling better. There's a growing amount of research showing the benefits of Tai Chi, including over a thousand years of human trials with tens of millions of Chinese as subjects. That may not be enough "data" to satisfy you, but I've got an 85 year old instructor, Grandmaster Hsu Fun Yuen, who could kick your ass, and certainly mine, around the room right now without raising his heartrate. He says it's the tai chi that gives him longevity, vitality enough to have a 7 year old daughter, and I ain't gonna argue with him. When you see an 85 year old man execute a perfect flying kick while swinging a 3 pound broadsword (Dao) in the tai chi sword form, it's convincing as hell.
It's also fun, which makes the health benefits icing on the cake.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You have a moral issue with embryonic stem cell research because you have not clue what it entails.
Embryonic Stem Cell Basics
"Most embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos that develop from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro--in an in vitro fertilization clinic--and then donated for research purposes with informed consent of the donors. They are not derived from eggs fertilized in a woman's body. The embryos from which human embryonic stem cells are derived are typically four or five days old and are a hollow microscopic ball of cells called the blastocyst."
A blastocyst is the embryonic clump of cells, approximately 70 to 100 cells, that would have the potential to turn into a baby if it were in a womb. As noted in the basics these blastocysts are not in a womb, they will never develop a placenta or form into a human.
Using political power and social pressure to hold back embryonic stem cell research does not mean it has no potential uses, it means there has been limited research, that's all.
I'm glad you admitted that you do not understand because that truly is the root of the entire debate.
Embryonic Stem Cell Basics
- Embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. Adult stem cells are thought to be limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin.
- Embryonic stem cells can be grown relatively easily in culture. Adult stem cells are rare in mature tissues, so isolating these cells from an adult tissue is challenging, and methods to expand their numbers in cell culture have not yet been worked out. This is an important distinction, as large numbers of cells are needed for stem cell replacement therapies.
In conclusion, there is no sane reason to be morally opposed to embryonic stem cell research due to a need for dead babies as no babies ever die for embryonic stem cell research.
Or perhaps you believe that virtually every man and woman on the planet are baby killers because they do not ensure that every single spermatozoa and ovam is given a chance to become a baby.
Perhaps you think that manufacturers of sanitary napkins and condoms are the enablers of baby killing.
You do see how irrational one can be when the probability of cells becoming a human becomes the basis for a moral standard, don't you? If you ever experience a nocturnal emission or go through a menstrual cycle without producing offspring then you are the same type of baby killer as the embryonic stem cell researchers. Obviously you did not kill any babies and neither did the researchers.
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.
So you consider it to be 'morally superior' to flush the excess fertilized eggs down the drain, destroying them with absolutely no benefit, than donate them to scientists who will use them in an attempt to develop treatments for you, your children, and the rest of the human race?
I can't help but see that donating them to scientific and medical research is a fundamentally good act on par with donating your organs when you die. You certainly shouldn't be compelled to do so but everyone ought to be encouraged to think of the good of our entire society.
>> faith healers
>> thank god it didn't come to me making that kind of decision
I don't get it, which side are you on?
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