Deirdre O’Dwyer’s eight-year-old son Evan suffers from a rare neurological disorder which means the left side of his brain has failed to develop properly. Evan, from the Commons Road, Cork, also developed severe epilepsy and autism as a result of the disorder. His mother took him to Germany last week to undergo stem-cell treatment at the XCell Centre in Dusseldorf.

However, the centre, which offers unlicensed treatments, has closed after being ordered to cease operating by German authorities.

“I am very frightened now,” said Mrs O’Dwyer, who felt the centre gave her son a “chance” by offering treatment he could not get elsewhere.

Read the full story at the Irish Independent.

To them, the fact that a treatment has not been thoroughly tested and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is a minor detail, with hope trouncing logic in a world where mainstream medicine can sometimes neither cure nor alleviate suffering.

The result is a booming international business that is growing every year, thanks in large part to the Internet and the savvy marketers who prey on patients’ fears.

Read more at Stanford Medicine.

However, WINK News also spoke to some of Dr. Grekos patients who credit him for saving their lives.

Read more WINK News.

Now South Korea is trying to crack down on the practice. Following the recent deaths of two Koreans who had received injections of stem cells, the Korea Food and Drug Administration and the health ministry last week launched an investigation into companies offering the treatments. But the latest cases highlight the difficulty of policing these therapies or determining their safety, because some companies are setting up operations around the globe, taking advantage of loopholes in other countries’ regulations.

One of the companies under scrutiny is Seoul-based RNL Bio, which formulated the cells used to treat the two Korean patients.

Read full article at Nature.com.

IN the last two months, two news items that made international headlines were linked by the themes of stem cells and hope.

Dr Robert Trossel started to give stem cell injections to patients with multiple sclerosis about a decade ago. This was and still is unproven therapy.

Dr Trossel’s practices were highlighted in a BBC Newsnight investigation in 2006. The following year, he was suspended by the General Medical Council (GMC). A hearing of the GMC fitness to practise panel said that Dr Trossel had exaggerated the benefits of stem cell treatment based on “anecdotal and aspirational information”.

Finally, the GMC took the decision to strike off Dr. Trossel from the medical register for giving false hope to desperate patients, charging thousands of pounds for “pointless” and “unjustifiable” stem cell treatments. Dr Trossel can no longer practise medicine in the UK.

False hope. Is there any other kind? Is hope overrated? To some, it is the only thing to live for. They may go along with Oliver Goldsmith, who said, “Hope, like the gleaming Taper’s light, adorns and cheers our way; and still, as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.”

Read the full article at The Star Online.

Dr. Wong Yoke Meng, 63, who practices at Clinique Suisse at the Paragon Medical Centre, was found guilty of offering stem cells for anti-aging treatment in an advertisement on a poster in the clinic.

The council’s disciplinary committee found this to have breached its ethical codes and guidelines laid down in March 2008.

The advertisement promoted skin generation for facial and body rejuvenation — “for a fresher younger look” — a treatment which the SMC said was not medically proven.

Contesting the charge, Dr. Wong claimed that the offered services described as stem cell for skin therapy were merely the topical application of stem cell creams. As such, he was not providing any medical treatment but merely selling cosmetics to patients.

Dr. Wong said he had no idea that stem cell therapy was not legal in Singapore and believed he was not doing any harm.

The disciplinary committee did not accept his position.

Read the full article at Today Online.

RNL Bio, the Seoul-based biotechnology firm that has found itself at the center of the controversy, claims that there is no solid evidence to suggest that the recent deaths of two Korean patients were related to stem cells it derived from the adult cells of the patients.

Beside the deaths, another patient claims he found cancer developing in his neck just weeks after receiving stem cell injections at a clinic in China in August last year to treat diabetes.

The incidents were revealed by Democratic Party lawmaker Joo Seung-yong in a National Assembly audit of the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

RNL had allowed the patients to take their patient-specific stem cells to hospitals in China and Japan for treatment, as Korea has yet to allow the clinical use of such stem cells.

Read full article at the Korea Times: Click here.

Speaking at a stem cell research conclave at Hyatt Regency in Andheri (East), he said, “The current guidelines, implemented in 2007 pertain only to research activities. But many leading private hospitals across the country are clinically implementing treatments that are still in the trial stage, particularly for neurological disorders.”

He said the only stem cell therapy approved by the ICMR for clinical application was in the area of bone marrow. “Brain tissue regeneration and many umbilical cord blood cell treatments being practised have not been cleared by the Government of India,” he cautioned.

Read the full article: Click here.

Dr. Robert Trossel, 56, who had consulting rooms in Wimpole Street, has failed to give patients refunds for the thousands of pounds they spent on treatment at his clinic in Rotterdam, Holland, the General Medical Council (GMC) heard.

Tom Kark, for the GMC, spoke of the patients’ “anger and sense of being let down” after being offered a “mirage” of treatment by Dr Trossel.

He told the GMC fitness to practice panel that Dr Trossel, who trained in Holland, should be struck off.

Read full article. Click here.

“Safety call over stem cell trips”, September 3, 2009, © BBC