Only a few stem cell therapies have been shown through clinical research to be safe and effective for treating medical conditions, mostly cancer and blood and immune disorders.
Yet, that hasn’t stopped a growing number of clinics across the United States — including some here in Minnesota — from marketing unapproved stem cell therapies for a long and widely diverse list of other conditions, including aging skin, sports injuries, sexual dysfunction, autism, dementia and multiple sclerosis.
A study published last week in the journal Cell Stem Cell shows just how pervasive these clinics have become. Using Internet key-word searches, Leigh Turner, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota, and Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell researcher at the University of California, Davis, identified 351 companies that are engaging in direct-to-consumer advertising of stem cell therapies at 570 individual clinics across the country.
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