The future of stem cell clinics across San Diego County, California, and the country are at risk. A federal appeals court in San Francisco just handed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to shut down untested, and sometimes unsafe, stem cell treatments. The ruling marks a major update to an investigation NBC 7 first reported six years ago.
The opinion overturns an earlier ruling in favor of two southern California stem cell clinics – Cell Surgical Network and California Stem Cell Treatment Center. Those clinics take patients’ fat cells through liposuction, convert them to stem cells, and then re-inject them back into patients.
Like hundreds of similar centers across the country, they claim the stem cell mixture works like “liquid magic” to reverse chronic and even degenerative diseases, like a time machine. The cost to ride that time machine can be tens of thousands of dollars. According to the ruling, a single treatment typically costs $8,900 and a 12-treatment option costs $41,500.
The problem, according to an overwhelming consensus of medical researchers and authorities, is that there is no proof that any of it works. In fact, dozens of patients have reported serious illness from stem cell therapy. Until now, the FDA didn’t have the power to do much about it.
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NBC 7 Investigates first reported on these clinics years ago after our team noticed ads and free seminars cropping up around our county for these so-called miracle cures.
In 2018, our hidden cameras were rolling inside one stem cell seminar in Carlsbad. At no point did the center’s director mention these treatments were not FDA-approved. That same year, at another stem cell clinic seminar, this time in Mission Valley, attendees were told the treatments had “FDA clearance.” The term “clearance” only applies to medical devices, there’s no such thing as a treatment with FDA clearance.
A bioethics expert told NBC 7 Investigates six years ago that he’d counted more than a thousand stem cell clinics across the country selling unproven treatments.
A Florida couple told NBC News they spent more than $30,000 on stem cell treatments. They said the clinic told them the treatments could cure Tonya Woodward’s skeletal deformities.
“There’s not a human being that wouldn’t be affected by not being able to move, or to do that, or to bend over and pick up something, or go to an event and enjoy it,” Woodward said.
“They’re selling more than false hope,” her husband said. “They’re selling snake oil for sure.”
“Snake oil” that now, because of this court ruling, can be shut down by the FDA. A big legal win in the agency’s years-long crackdown on stem cell clinics.
