On the rise
Clinics offering unproven stem cell therapies proliferating across Canada
Dozens of unlicensed clinics offering stem cell treatments for a wide variety of medical conditions have sprung up in Canada, marketing their services through direct-to-consumer online advertising, a study has found. Canadian-born researcher Leigh Turner, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Bioethics, identified 30 businesses marketing stem cell therapies at 43 clinics across the country. The clinics aren’t approved by Health Canada nor are their services covered by provincial health insurance plans, meaning patients typically pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for what he calls “unproven” stem cell therapies. “I think it’s hard for individual patients to navigate what’s out there,” Turner said in an interview from Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. “And the sicker you are and the more desperate you are and the more hopeful that there’s something out there, the easier it is to be taken advantage of by businesses that are savvy marketers,” he said. His study, published Wednesday in the journal Regenerative Medicine, involved an extensive online search for direct-to-consumer websites offering stem cell therapies to Canadians. His search turned up 24 clinics in Ontario, eight in British Columbia, six in Alberta, three in Quebec, and one each in Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. There were 17 clinics in the Greater Toronto Area alone. “They just sort of set up shop and put out a shingle on the internet and start making marketing claims and begin to advertise stem cell treatments,” said Turner, noting that there are now hundreds of such clinics in the U.S. as well as in countries around the world. Stem cells give rise to many different cell types in the body and offer the potential for treating a wide array of diseases. However, regenerative medicine experts say much rigorous research is still needed to determine how these cells can be used safely and effectively as therapies. Most of the Canadian clinics identified by Turner offer stem cell treatments for orthopedic and musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis, pain relief and sports-related injuries. One B.C.-based company advertises stem cell treatments for a broad range of disorders, among them ALS, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy and erectile dysfunction. But there is no scientific evidence that injecting or transfusing stem cells - often purportedly derived from a person’s own fat tissue - has any benefit in easing the symptoms of such diseases, let alone providing a cure, he said. And in some cases, such interventions can do harm, Turner said, citing the 2015 case of a Florida clinic using a stem-cell preparation to try to improve the sight of three women with macular degeneration, who ended up being blinded. Stem cells from bone marrow have long been a proven therapy for rebuilding the blood system in people with leukemia, for instance. In that case, bone marrow is taken from a tissue-matched donor in what’s known as an allogenic transplant.