I’m flattered but this is what the stem cell clinics are up against; To me it’s all about personal freedom
I’ve just had the distinct but perhaps questionable honor of being quoted extensively by the Grand Inquisitor of all things unconventional (medicine wise). here is his post:
https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/21/fda-cracks-quack-stem-cell-clinics/
Like M.C. Escher so brilliantly explains in his pictures, it all depends on your perspective, whether you think the the FDA final guidance documents are a good or bad thing.
But, one thing I’ve never been able to figure out about the other side is why the obsession with the stem cell clinics with how much money they are making. 580,000 people a year pay a ton of money in cancer treatment and die in spite of what they spent. Where’s the outrage from the other side for all the money which patients spend on approved but unsuccessful treatments? And that’s just cancer. And what about all the approved treatments which have caused or hastened death, disability or morbidity?
To me it all comes down personal freedom. Why should the FDA, Paul Knoeffler or David Gorsky be able to tell me that I can’t pay someone to remove part of my body which may have some healing power and reimplant it, especially if there is no other treatment available, or the options carry lifestyle or serious morbidity risks. We all get that it hasn’t been blessed by the FDA or the stem cell mafiaoso, but it’s my body. That seems to me to be the core issue. We get that people like you think we’re making a foolish decision. But society lets people do many worse things, like smoking. Maybe it’s time for Congress to get involved, if it can pull itself away from the reality show and start doing the people’s business.
rick jaffe, Esq.
rickjaffeesquire@gmail.com
www.rickjaffe.com
7 thoughts on “I’m flattered but this is what the stem cell clinics are up against; To me it’s all about personal freedom”
Am I herb sn Amen for what you stated?
It’s my life so I should be able to decide how much of s risk I am willing to take in order to live…
That’s is just nonsense… take the devastating desease, ALD… the prognosis death and one of the worst possible deaths, loosing all your ability to do anything while you might still be sane. And I can’t decide if stem cell treatment is better for me?
I don’t have ALD, but I good friend of mine has it. He could benefit from this but FDA hasn’t approved it so it’s too risky. And he is far too advance to be able to be selected for a trial.
Like you said, it is easier to prescribe Pain killers that will make you an addict, because there’s is money in it, but can’t orescribe something that will save your like… just because it might actually an curing a desease!!!
I guess they are thinking about jobs since that would mean less visits to the dr, therapist, dietitian, etc…
It is jus sad how ingumane our Medicine has become. It’s all about keeping you healthy enough so you can continue being a user..
Mariela
In Knoepfler’s case, it is his chance at a modicum of fame. He particularly resents the fact that clinicians make money, and from his appearance he probably suffers from other “shortcomings” as well. His Wikipedia entry is obviously self written and amusing in that it praises his courage at being a blogger from academia (which may have been but no longer is particularly novel) and details of his own medical history. I could hazard an educated guess about his hormonal status. I hope he realizes it could be clouding his brain.
In Gorski’s case, he probably makes plenty of money. He is a former colleague of Dr. Farid Fata, the physician now serving time for treating non cancer patients with chemotherapy. From patient reviews he is not a very nice person who would rather be blogging. (said one patient: “I got the impression that he’d rather I shoot myself than to interrupt his busy day of blogging.” I would guess he just enjoys being a rabble rouser, and as a cancer surgeon he is certainly a purveyor of pharmaceuticals, if not a shill for the industry, as some of his many detractors claim. But other than a preference for surgical and chemical approaches to cancer, I am baffled as to why he is so dead set against stem cell therapy, except that it gives him yet another platform from which to
proclaim his “expertise”.
Both of them decry any clinical trial in which the patient bears a portion of the expense, and claim that alone to be unassailable proof of quackery.
So the “Big Stem Cell” industry is supposed to fund these studies? So that “Big Pharma” might be deprived of billions? I don’t think that is very likely. Fully funded RCT of stem cell therapy is not going to happen unless Bill Gates or the estate of Conrad Prebys decide to get involved. If this is what is required for such people and the FDA to be convinced, it is simply not going to happen. Patients will simply go offshore to countries where this has long been mainstream therapy.
What is needed is for one or both of these bloggers (or someone who is very powerful in Congress) to develop a disease for which stem cells offer the only chance of cure. Perhaps Scott Gottlieb, too, could benefit from such a learning experience.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying for the past decade! The obsession for “protecting” patients is really a desire to control the industry through any means possible. Need to keep those grants and research dollars rolling in! Railing on about for profit clinics is just another tactic the naysayers have come up with to block access for patients seeking treatment. This is all about power, profits and politics disguised as caring about patients.
right on
I need to edit my above comment. Although Fata is a former colleague b/v/o being a fellow oncologist in Detroit, the purported association comes from a source (found on “Respectful Insolence”— a non sequitur of the first rank) that according to Gorski elsewhere on the site is not credible (http://bit.ly/Oracdisc). The patient review may be apocryphal. But it is well written, and not inconceivable, given the tone of the writings of the man himself. (Gorski does admit some difficulty finding a host willing to have his blog; suggests something. ) There is almost no way to vet such things. Dollars for Docs does not list a David Gorski, so if he is a shill he is an unpaid one! But it still makes little sense that a “man of science” would doubt the potential for stem cell therapy. Unless he just enjoys labeling anyone not utterly mainstream as being a quack. Galileo and Semmelweiss were so labeled of course.
The question does not lie on the dangers of unproven medical treatments but imposing blanket government restrictions for all patients from the ill to the terminally ill, no matter how long they have or suffer. I guess from ones perspective it depends if you’re a patient, doctor, or researcher, but of the three groups, one pays the ultimate price. We lose sight on what patients want.
Practicing locus tenement in Suburban Philadelphia practice where stem cells are very successfully used to delay (sometimes permanently) total knee and hip surgery- that is obviously VERY PROFITABLE for the orthopedic surgery groups et al,we were informed that the surgeons in the group were told that if they even just whispered
the words “‘stem cells” they’d be
immediately FIRED from the group.
WHY? FOLLOW THE MONEY! Because stem cells may really WORK, thus preventing the need for the very lucrative surgery .