A blind woman has regained sight following a controversial stem cell treatment

Science Alert ^ | 29 FEB 2016 | BEC CREW

[sparklite2]

Essentially, the 'traditional route' of lab-to-animals-to-clinical-trials takes too long, Weiss says, so he figured out how to game the system and start testing his new treatment on his own terms.

The catch is that stem cells aren’t classified as a drug - they’re extracted from a patient's body, go through very little processing, and are used on that same patient, so Weiss was able to bypass FDA approval to register his NIH trials. He did need approval and oversight from an ethics review panel, and got his from the International Cellular Medicine Society, an independent, pro-stem cell therapy group based in Nevada.

So Weiss, who is practicing independently of any university or research institution, is now free to charge around US$20,000 per patient to perform his stem cell treatment, and offers no promises of a cure to his patients.

[jacknhoo]

Adult stem cells great -nothing ultimately good will ever result from the exploitation of innocent defenseless little boys and girls lives.

[fella]

"Weiss reports that 60 percent of his 278 patients - who have gone blind because of diseases such as macular degeneration and glaucoma - have regained some sight following the procedure."

I know a bunch of elderly people who are going to want this procedure.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The degree of difficulty in figuring this out is Moon landing difficult.

For example, all aspects of stem cells seem to be utterly controlled by what we call “inflammation”. It tells the body to produce stem cells, what kind to produce, where to send them, it tells the immune system to leave them alone, it tells them where to go in the inflamed area, and what to do when they get there, how to shape themselves to replace the cells that need to be replaced, it tells the tissues when they have been made whole, tells the body to stop making more stem cells, and tells the immune system to police up any that were not used.

And every thing I just wrote was from unique science papers about inflammation and stem cells. I haven’t seen anybody combine them yet in a single process.

[Secret Agent Man]

Patients own. The only real benefits for anyone are done with adult, their own, stem cells. Don’t have to be on anti tisue rejection drugs.

[Jemian]

What is probably considered more controversial is that the doc did an end -run around the FDA. They live to regulate.