Category Archives: New Mexico Stem Cells

Adipose Derived Stem Cells:

Adipose derived stem cells are obtained from a sample of human abdominal fat tissue. The cells themselves are not fat. They are encased in and surrounded by fat tissue.Once the fat sample has been obtained, a special enzyme is used to melt-away the fat, and leave only something called SVF (short for Stromal Vascular Fraction), which contains stem cells, accessory cells and growth factors.

This SVF is washed and purified in the lab, and is then isolated for infusion or injection.

This method provides a much larger number of stem cells than bone marrow or peripheral blood, making it more efficient and highly effective in a variety of conditions, especially those that require creation of new blood vessels, and repairing tissues damaged due to lack of oxygenation.

Whartons Jelly Derived Stem cells:

Unlike Fat, Bone marrow or other tissues that can be harvested for stem cell isolation, Whartons Jelly does not contain SVF. It is a gelatinous substance found in the umbilical chord, which separates maternal and fetal tissues, acting as a kind of buffer so that these tissues dont come into direct contact with each other. This particular characteristic is the reason they became known as universal donor cells, since they are able to interact with any tissue, in any host, without causing any form of immune response.

Unlike cells obtained with SVF, stem cells in Whartons jelly are not found grouped with other cells types or blood products. They can be obtained in much larger numbers, and are already completely isolated, which means that you get stem cells exclusively.

The fact that they are obtained from umbilical chords, donated by pre-screened donors after their pregnancy has come to full-term, means that they are much easier to harvest, in much larger numbers, and without the need for a specific, invasive and painful procedure. It also means that because of the incredibly large number of cells that can be obtained, they can be cryo-preserved and stored at pre-determined dose sizes in individual containers for specific uses.

Follow this link:
Stem Cell Therapy in Mexico - Official Treatment Center

A team of researchers from New Mexico State Universitys Department of Physics have, for the first time, created a three-dimensional rendering of a microscopic nanoparticles structural transformation induced and controlled by an external electrical source.Topological defects are stable configurations of matter formed during phase transitions that in general may dramatically alter material properties. But until recently it was impossible to non-destructively probe 3D topological structures embedded in ferroelectric nanoparticles while applying external perturbations to monitor their behavior during structural phase transitions.

A depiction of a ferroelectric nanoparticle undergoing phase transition with the outside influence of an electrical field.

The team, led by Edwin Fohtung, assistant professor at NMSU, performed the experiments with Barium Titanate (BTO) nanoparticles. Using an external electrical field the scientists were able to observe in three dimensions a ferroelectric vortex rod of 30 nanometers in widtha billion times smaller than a human hair.

This discovery can provide scientists with new methods in designing next-generation quantum computing components. For example, nanoparticles with such vortex-phases may increase computer RAM storage capacity by 10,000-fold.

Fohtung and his teams work is supported by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The team used X-rays from the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, and the Bragg X ray Coherent Diffractive Imaging (BCDI) technique to probe a single particle of BTO, with 18 nanometers resolution in 3D.

BCDI can be used to reconstruct the density of the sample in phases. This reconstruction technique is called phase-retrieval. This technique developed by Fohtung and his team at NMSU is applicable to other areas, such as biology and regenerative medicine, where scientists and medical doctors are studying how stem cells and cancer cells and other micro-organisms collectively evolve in their environment, undergoing transitions in a similar way.

The applications in biomedicine are currently being pursued by Dmitry Karpov, an NMSU affiliate and a visiting research fellow from the National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University (Tomsk, Russia).

The results have been published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Communications.

Read the full NMSU news release from 09/13/2017.

Link:
New Mexico State University - Department of Physics

It is also the story of her family, friends, and community and their spiritual and financial commitment in support of her fight.

Inherently it is also about the unenviable position millions of Americans find themselves in, isolated between insurance companies and the medical establishment of this country, forced to seek medical care beyond our borders.

"Over a two-year period, I started having these terrible dizzy spells, losing my balance, and when I would bend my head forward, I would go numb all over. I was losing my vision and couldn't hear out of my right ear. I was 25," recalled Somerset's Barb Rivard.

Rivard grew up in Glenwood City. She has three grown children and six grand children. She tended bar for 19 years, graduated from WITC in 1999, and worked as a scheduler in the physical therapy department at Westfields Hospital & Clinic in New Richmond for 14 years. She reluctantly gave up her position at the hospital three years ago because of her disease.

Ask around and you will find she has a reputation for being independent, some might say stubborn, and she wants to keep it that way.

"I don't want people feeling sorry for me. I've been called bullheaded. For me it's tough, I don't like to ask for help. I was a single mother with my boys for a lot of years," said Rivard.

When she first started experiencing symptoms, her family doctor sent her to a neurologist who concluded she had an issue causing spine inflammation and he sent her on her way.

When her symptoms persisted, nearly costing her her job tending bar, she returned to the neurologist for more testing. At the time, Rivard's mother was dying from brain cancer, leading her to wonder if she might also have brain cancer. Meanwhile, her family physician speculated it might be a brain tumor.

"The tests came back and the neurologist told me I had multiple sclerosis (MS). He said, 'You're a young healthy woman and it will never bother you again.' He sent me on my way, again. At that point, I couldn't see out of my left eye, but I thought, 'Okay good, at least we know something.' I knew absolutely nothing about MS," said Rivard. It was 1990.

What is MS?

MS presents in people in four different ways according to International Advisory Committee on Clinical Trials of MS: clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), primary progressive MS (PPMS), and secondary progressive MS (SPMS).

Rivard was diagnosed with RRMS.

MS is a chronic disease that attacks the central nervous system, (brain, spinal cord and optic nerves). Symptoms can include loss of vision, pain, fatigue, muscle spasms, impaired coordination, and numbness in the limbs. In severe cases, the patient can become paralyzed or blind.

Often the severity and progression of the disease is determined by an MRI to identify lesions within the central nervous system.

Treatment

The approved course of treatment in the U.S. is any one of a number of powerful drugs known as disease modifying-therapies (DMT), taken either by injection, intravenously or orally, designed to decrease the frequency of relapses and delay the progression of the disease. Attacks or relapses are frequently treated with high doses of steroids for immediate relief. There is currently no known cure for MS.

Upset that the neurologist had failed to communicate with him regarding Rivard's condition, her family physician sent her to a second neurologist. Over the next four years, a succession of neurologists, approved by her health insurance, treated her with a prescription of DMTs. The injections can be painful and expensive.

"They kept putting me on these once-a-month injections that were extremely high priced. They ran anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 a month and that was 25 years ago. Some of the drugs I took every day, some were every other day, and one of them was this once-a-week self-injection. They made me super, super sick. I had this big needle I had to stick in the top of my leg. It was horrible. I had big welts everywhere," said Rivard.

All in all, Rivard tried the various drug regimens for 15 years. She continued to suffer relapses accompanied by sickness brought on by the drugs themselves only compounding her frustration with her doctors.

"At one point, one of my neurologists told me I didn't know what I was talking about when it came to my own body. I wasn't so pleasant when I told him I didn't need his services any more," recalled Rivard.

Five years ago, she hooked up with Dr. Rita Richardson, a neurologist who visits at Westfields Hospital & Clinic in New Richmond.

"Dr. Richardson and I just really get along. I absolutely love her. She's one of those doctors who will sit there and listen. She actually cares. Finally, after 20 years," said Rivard.

A new approach

Three years ago, Rivard implemented a new approach to her disease, no more DMTs. She began working with a nutritionist.

"We don't eat out of a box anymore. We eat healthier and we know what we are eating," said Rivard.

She and her husband eat beef they raise themselves and vegetables and fruit from their own garden. In addition to a new diet, Rivard tries to maintain a regular physical fitness routine swimming five times a week, riding her bike and attempting a little yoga at home. She feels better both physically and financially having eliminated expensive drugs from her budget. However the MS continued to relapse causing debilitating episodes and regular spasticity particularly in her legs.

"My whole body goes wild. I can't walk. I either sleep all the time or I don't sleep. I go to the bathroom. I might as well just sit in the bathroom. Usually I feel weak, very weak. My husband can sense it coming on more than I can. I live with it, but he witnesses it. Most of the time, he'll say, 'I think I need to take you in.' After the first dose of steroids, I usually feel better," said Rivard describing a relapse.

Four years ago, Rivard had a Baclofen pump inserted to control the spasticity in her legs. Baclofen is a muscle relaxant and antispastic commonly used to address spasticity in MS patients. She resigned her position at the hospital.

"I knew I couldn't do this anymore, so I told them I was resigning so as not to leave them hanging. I miss my job, but I still have my care team. When I go in for my treatments, everybody still comes up and hugs and kisses me," said Rivard.

Clinica RUIZ

After years of feeling experimented on and left out of the equation when it came to managing her own care, Rivard began reading extensively about MS to educate herself about her disease. That is when she learned of hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT) and Clinica RUIZ in Puebla City, Mexico.

HSCT treatment for MS essentially rewrites a diseased person's immune system. A person's stem cells are harvested; their immune system is wiped out taking with it any memory of the disease. Their stem cells are reintroduced to a disease free environment where they repair and reconfigure neural damage done by the disease. Ideally it halts any progression of the disease and returns function to varying degrees depending on the individual without the use of any DMTs.

Rivard initially applied to the only HSCT program in the U.S. being conducted at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The program has been in place since 2015 but is highly selective and expensive, $125,000 per patient. She was rejected for the program due to her age and her MRI revealed no active lesions. However, through the Chicago program's website, Rivard connected to an online community where alternatives to the program in Chicago were explored. That is where she met Bill, who lives in Roberts, and Nancy, who lives in Amery, fellow MS sufferers who had both undergone HSCT at Clinica RUIZ in Mexico.

"I had the information sitting here for about two months. Finally I talked to Dr. Richardson about it and she said, 'Go for it.' The clinic has an application process online. It took me a half hour to fill out. I applied on Sunday and was accepted the next day," said Rivard.

Clinica RUIZ is operated by Dr. Guillermo Ruiz Argelles in Puebla City, Mexico. Ruiz Arguelles has conducted more than 700 stem cell procedures since 1996. According to his web site, hsctmexico.com, a simplification of the grafting process (collection of the stem cells) refined over the years, has resulted in a substantial decrease in cost to the patient. It has also enabled most of the procedures to be conducted on an outpatient basis. Ruiz Arguelles and his staff have produced numerous academic articles and received numerous awards and recognition including election as a Distinguished Mayo Alumnus and Master of the American College of Physicians.

Rivard relapsed three times between January and May this year. The prospect of hope and promise of a high percentage of success (better than 80 percent of patients experience some degree of success halting the disease's progression and better yet, reversing their disability) was all encouraging to her, still it was Mexico and so far it was just words.

Seeing actual, physical results in the persons of Bill and Nancy and being able to ask them questions about their personal experiences convinced Rivard this opportunity was the real deal.

Nancy was diagnosed with MS one year ago. She returned from her HSCT treatment at Clinica RUIZ on March 27, 2017. She is 44 years old. She also shares Rivard's neurologist, Dr. Richardson.

"I saw these two pictures posted by a woman. One of her the day she was leaving the hospital in Chicago after she received treatment four years ago. And the other was that day, after she had finished a ten-mile run. I asked myself, 'Why am I waiting? I can't run.' Even if this treatment did nothing but stop it, I was happy to try it. I had started to use a cane, which was mentally difficult for me. It's not my goal to need a neurologist to aggressively treat me. My goal is that I beat this. I just need somebody to help me if I need it. Dr. Richardson has been really accepting that I had this radical treatment. This treatment has helped me way more than I had ever hoped. This morning I posted a video of me doing hopscotch. I saw immediate improvement during treatment. I ditched my cane two weeks into treatment. Now I'm working out at the gym. I'm getting my balance back and learning how to jump rope," described Nancy.

In May, Barb paid $54,500 to Clinica RUIZ in advance of her treatment. Her health insurance will not pay a dime toward her treatment. As of mid June, numerous fundraisers organized by friends and family including a live auction, meat raffle and spaghetti feed have raised more than $41,000 to steadily chip away at the financial obligation. In exchange for a rusting antique grain truck engulfed in weeds in her backyard, Rivard will receive three round-trip airline tickets to Mexico City courtesy of her brother-in-law.

"He's had his eye on that old truck for years. That's a win, win for me," said Rivard with a big smile.

The next step

She will leave for Mexico Saturday, Aug. 12. From the airport in Mexico City, it is a two-hour bus ride to the clinic in Puebla City. On Monday, Aug. 14, Rivard will be assigned to one of four groups of five patients and undergo a full day of testing. The clinic has the capacity to treat 20 patients at a time.

Over the course of the next three weeks, Rivard will undergo potent chemotherapy to kill off any infections and eliminate memory cells in her immune system. She will then receive a series of injections to stimulate the growth of her stem cells. Stem cells from her own body will then be harvested using a process called aphaeresis. Following the harvest, she will receive a second round of chemo preceding the reintroduction of her previously harvested stem cells back into her body. Once the stem cells have been transplanted she will enter a neutropenic period during which her body is very susceptible to infection. She will eat a specific diet to help her body recover and have very little contact with the outside world. During that period the stem cells are beginning to grow in an environment cleansed of the previous disease beginning to repair and reconfigure any neural damage done by the disease. Before she leaves Mexico, she will begin receiving a course of Rituxan injections intended to hold her immune system at bay killing off cells, which would otherwise attack the new stem cells impeding the recovery process. Those injections continue every other month for nine months. Staff at Clinica RUIZ will be in contact with her hematologist, Dr. McCormack, before she leaves to begin monitoring her recovery. To aid in Clinica RUIZ's research, Rivard will continue to update her progress every three months using an online report form. Provided everything goes as planned, Barb will return home Sept. 9.

The range of recovery stories is amazing. People restricted to wheelchairs are walking. Rivard's friend Nancy went back to work, sans cane, two weeks after she returned home. Her friend, Bill, is continuing to improve a year and a half removed from his trip to Clinica RUIZ. Studies indicate patients can continue to improve for two or more years after treatment.

"Nothing else is helping me. I've been reading about this for a long time. The biggest drawback is, it doesn't work. I have to do it. I'm excited to go."

Follow her journey on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/bean.langness.

More here:
The power of hope - Richmond-News

See more of the story

The clinics offer futuristic-sounding treatments for everything from eye problems to osteoarthritis.

Listed on a government website, they present the opportunity to participate in clinical trials to test the potential of one of the most promising tools in medicine the bodys own stem cells. Its an attractive pitch for many patients, even though some of the clinics charge $6,000 and up to participate.

Now, with a national debate raging over the future of one of the hottest frontiers in 21st-century medicine, a University of Minnesota bioethicist has taken center stage in questioning whether many of these services are legitimate.

You have these businesses that dont have meaningful clinical research going on, the Us Leigh Turner said in an interview. There is a risk for fraud, in that people may be charged thousands of dollars to get an intervention that has no chance of working.

Turner has emerged as a major critic of the clinics, some of which he says have flawed procedures that allow bias to distort the results of treatment studies. He also says allowing clinics to list studies can imply government approval, lending false legitimacy to marketing pitches.

My concern is that you basically take clinicaltrials.gov and transform it into a marketing platform, Turner said.

In the past, Turner has moved beyond academic criticism, reporting several clinics he considered questionable to regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

One of them, Celltex Therapeutics Corp., received a warning letter from the FDA for its practices in 2012. The company eventually moved its stem-cell infusion operations to Mexico, but it pushed back against Turner in a complaint lodged with U President Eric Kaler.

Clinics have also fired back at Turners latest critical article, which appeared last month in the medical journal Regenerative Medicine.

Research scientist Duncan Ross of Florida-based Kimera Labs, which was identified in Turners July 19 article as advertising an undisclosed pay-for-participation stem-cell study on clinicaltrials.gov, has threatened legal action.

I encourage you to amend your publication or I am going to bring suit against the institution for defamation or slander, Ross wrote to Turner. I am going to lobby the journal for the retraction of this publication. I followed the letter of the FDA as it exists at this time and I am not going to have my name disparaged because of your lack of interest in due diligence.

Turner said no litigation has materialized, and an editor at Regenerative Medicine said no request for a retraction has been made.

Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon Dr. Mark Berman who is co-medical director of the national Cell Surgical Network, another clinic group named in Turners article said academic researchers like Turner are misguided and out of touch with real-world medical needs.

We are not taking public funding and using it to our benefit while pursuing scientific excellence were actually trying to help our patients while learning about the treatments and the disease they have, Berman said in an e-mail to the Star Tribune. Frankly, I think this is much more ethical than a major university with billions of endowment dollars taking millions of dollars of taxpayer money so they can build new offices and laboratories to further the study of stem cells.

Stem cells are the undifferentiated raw cells in the body that have the ability to quickly produce copies of themselves and also change into other kinds of cells like bone, muscle and blood cells.

Hospitals have safely used stem-cell transplant procedures to treat cancers for decades, but the FDA has approved just one commercial stem-cell product to date, which is made from infant cord blood and can only be used to produce more blood cells.

One of the most common sources of stem cells in pay-to-participate studies is body fat, often obtained via liposuction and known as adipose-derived stem cells. The fact that a byproduct of liposuction can be turned into a potentially therapeutic substance helps explain why smaller clinics are often affiliated with or run by plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery centers.

Some critics have called for more oversight by the FDA. FDA officials, for their part, have said they share the excitement over the theoretical promise of stem cells to treat or cure disease by converting into cell types needed by the patient. But the agency has sounded a cautionary tone over the profusion of stem-cell clinics and studies popping up around the country.

Studies so far have not reliably demonstrated the effectiveness of stem-cell treatments, even in some of the most systematically studied conditions, FDA officials wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in March. This lack of evidence is worrisome.

Turner said that many of the studies advertised on clinicaltrials.gov dont seem geared to produce high-quality data that will be medically useful, especially when they involve open-label study designs, where doctors and patients know what treatments are given, and patients are paying out of their own pockets.

In most clinical trials, study subjects are not charged fees to participate. In contrast, individuals enrolled in what are often called pay-to-participate studies are charged thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, Turners report says. Pay-to-participate studies also risk amplifying placebo effects as a result of the sizable fees companies often charge research participants and the hyperbole used to promote such studies.

Allowing participants to know what treatments are given departs from a typical randomized, blind study in which the intervention is kept secret for a period of time. That practice reduces the risk of a placebo effect, which can run high in medical studies.

A 2010 analysis of studies of irritable bowel syndrome treatments found that nearly 40 percent of 8,400 patients experienced an improvement in their symptoms even though they didnt receive the drug being studied.

Tennessee resident Doug Oliver, a nationally known advocate for stem-cell research who says he was legally blind before his eyes were treated with stem cells, agreed that placebo-controlled trials are the best way to ensure that patients are really being helped by a treatment.

But he argues that the coming age of cellular medicine will also require a wider understanding of how medical evidence is generated.

Oliver said most stem-cell clinics are trying to do the right thing, and many people feel that it wasnt even possible to get true FDA oversight of a stem-cell clinical trial before the signing of the 21st Century Cures Act last December. But even Oliver acknowledges that some clinics have exploited clinicaltrials.gov and disregarded any form of regulation thus far.

You have a group of clinics, which I think is a minority, maybe 20 percent, who are ill-intended, unqualified, or there is a personal and cultural aversion to doing anything that even smacks of following a regulation, he said. There are a number of clinics out there like that, and they are hurting people and they should be shut down.

Joe Carlson 612-673-4779

Continue reading here:
University of Minnesota bioethicist takes on clinics touting stem-cell studies - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Dr. Baums Practice of Medicine

Dr. Baum is an Osteopathic Physician & Surgeon who has been in the practice of medicine for over 40 years, bridging the gap between Allopathic, Osteopathic and Alternative Medicine. Dr Baum is licensed to practice medicine in New Mexico, Hawaii, and California.

Trained in Medicine, General Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Plastic surgery, Pain Management, Prolotherapy, PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma), Stem Cells for Joint Reconstruction Therapy, Sclerotherapy, Neural Therapy and IV Chelation Therapy, Dr. Baums major focus for years has been on Pain Management and Orthopedic and Sports Medicine. Dr. Baum was one of the instructors of the American College of Osteopathic Sclerotherapeutic Pain Management. The term Sclerotherapy originally referred to Pain Management, Spine and Joint Reconstruction. Now the term Prolotherapy is more often referred to as a Method of Spine and Joint Reconstruction and Pain Management. The term Sclerotherapy is now used commonly for treatment of varicose veins.

STEM CELLS FOR PRP, PRP PURE, BONE MARROW AND FAT ARE ALL STEM CELLS FROM YOUR OWN BODY.

For more information please use this link to PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) on this website.

PRE MED:

Central University, Edmond, OK 1960-1964

Medical School:

1964-1968 Kansas City University of Medicine & Biosciences

1750 Independence Ave., Kansas City, MO. 64106-1453

Preceptorships:

Medical Examiner Program Oklahoma County 1972

1969-1975 General Surgery & Orthopedic Surgery, Hillcrest Health Center,

Okla. City, Okla.,AOA approved teaching Hospital Program

Program Director: E.E. Blackwood, D.O., and Chief of Surgery

Plastic Surgery Fellowship 1975-1976 Brookline Surgical Center, Okla. City Okla.

1969-1975 General Anesthesia, Hillcrest Health Center,

Okla. City, Okla.,AOA Approved Teaching Hospital Program

Program Director: Richard J. Langerman, D.O., and Chief of Anesthesia

1985-1990 Anesthesia Pain Management Specialties & Discography Program

Highland Hospital, 2412 50th St., Lubbock, TX 79412

Director: James Ivan Barber, M.D.

Tutorials:

1991 Anesthesia & Pain Fellowship

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX

Program Director: Gabor Racz, M.D., Professor and Chairman

1992 Assisted Spinal Disc Decompression using the Versapulse Holmium

Yag Laser and Lase Arthroscopy

University of California, San Diego Medical Center

Director Vert Mooney, M.D., Chief of Orthopedic Dept.

American Osteopathic Association Board Certifications:

American Osteopathic Academy of Sports Medicine January 1, 1989

3/31/81 American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians,Certification: 0027865-A1746

1990 American College of Osteopathic Pain Management & Sclerotherapy

1993 American Osteopathic College of Occupational & Preventative Medicine: Board Eligible Occupational Medicine

Other Board Specialties:

Diplomat of the American Board of Neurological and Orthopedic Medicine And Surgery #0329/0600

10/24/87 American Academy of Neurological & Orthopedic Surgeons

Board of Pain Management Specialties Certification:# 900/0600

1994 American Academy of Pain Management, Certification: # 3499

Fellowships:

2013 Present Fellow of the American Association of Osteopathic Examiners

1988 Present Fellow of the American Academy of Disability Evaluating

March 5, 2013 Appointment as a FELLOW OF THE FERERATION OF STATE MEDICAL BOARDS

Current & Past Board Appointments:

4/1/03 4/1/05 State of New Mexico Osteopathic Licensure board, Medical Board Member

Appointed by: Governor Bill Richardson

2/15/03 Present New Mexico Osteopathic Medical Association, Board of Directors

2011 President New Mexico Osteopathic Medical Association

10/2002 10/2004 American Osteopathic College of Pain Management & Sclerotherapy: Board of Directors

4/1/03-4/1/05 APPOINTMENT BY: GOVERNOR Bill Richardson to the State of New Mexico Osteopathic Licensure Board of Medicine

6/18/2012 APPOINTMENT BY: GOVERNOR Susanna Martinez to the State of New Mexico Osteopathic Licensure Board of Medicine

Memberships in Professional Societies:

1990 Present American College of Osteopathic Pain Management & Sclerotherapy http://www.ACOPMS.com

2006 Present ACAM http://www.ACAM.org

American College of Sports Medicine 2013

AMA American Medical Association 2013

State Licenses: Dr. Baum has obtained medical licenses in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Texas but currently maintains medical licenses only in the states of New Mexico, California and Hawaii. Dr. Baum is currently practicing in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Although Dr. Baum has received training in General Surgery, Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Dr. Baum, has chosen to specialize in PRP-PLATELET RICH PLASMA BONE MARROW AND FAT STEM CELLS.

Continue reading here:
About Dr. Baum - Ortho Stem Cell Centers USA

The clinics offer futuristic-sounding treatments for everything from eye problems to osteoarthritis.

Listed on a government website, they present the opportunity to participate in clinical trials to test the potential of one of the most promising tools in medicine the bodys own stem cells. Its an attractive pitch for many patients, even though some of the clinics charge $6,000 and up to participate.

Now, with a national debate raging over the future of one of the hottest frontiers in 21st-century medicine, a University of Minnesota bioethicist has taken center stage in questioning whether many of these services are legitimate.

You have these businesses that dont have meaningful clinical research going on, the Us Leigh Turner said in an interview. There is a risk for fraud, in that people may be charged thousands of dollars to get an intervention that has no chance of working.

Turner has emerged as a major critic of the clinics, some of which he says have flawed procedures that allow bias to distort the results of treatment studies. He also says allowing clinics to list studies can imply government approval, lending false legitimacy to marketing pitches.

My concern is that you basically take clinicaltrials.gov and transform it into a marketing platform, Turner said.

In the past, Turner has moved beyond academic criticism, reporting several clinics he considered questionable to regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

One of them, Celltex Therapeutics Corp., received a warning letter from the FDA for its practices in 2012. The company eventually moved its stem-cell infusion operations to Mexico, but it pushed back against Turner in a complaint lodged with U President Eric Kaler.

Clinics have also fired back at Turners latest critical article, which appeared last month in the medical journal Regenerative Medicine.

Research scientist Duncan Ross of Florida-based Kimera Labs, which was identified in Turners July 19 article as advertising an undisclosed pay-for-participation stem-cell study on clinicaltrials.gov, has threatened legal action.

I encourage you to amend your publication or I am going to bring suit against the institution for defamation or slander, Ross wrote to Turner. I am going to lobby the journal for the retraction of this publication. I followed the letter of the FDA as it exists at this time and I am not going to have my name disparaged because of your lack of interest in due diligence.

Turner said no litigation has materialized, and an editor at Regenerative Medicine said no request for a retraction has been made.

Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon Dr. Mark Berman who is co-medical director of the national Cell Surgical Network, another clinic group named in Turners article said academic researchers like Turner are misguided and out of touch with real-world medical needs.

We are not taking public funding and using it to our benefit while pursuing scientific excellence were actually trying to help our patients while learning about the treatments and the disease they have, Berman said in an e-mail to the Star Tribune. Frankly, I think this is much more ethical than a major university with billions of endowment dollars taking millions of dollars of taxpayer money so they can build new offices and laboratories to further the study of stem cells.

Stem cells are the undifferentiated raw cells in the body that have the ability to quickly produce copies of themselves and also change into other kinds of cells like bone, muscle and blood cells.

Hospitals have safely used stem-cell transplant procedures to treat cancers for decades, but the FDA has approved just one commercial stem-cell product to date, which is made from infant cord blood and can only be used to produce more blood cells.

One of the most common sources of stem cells in pay-to-participate studies is body fat, often obtained via liposuction and known as adipose-derived stem cells. The fact that a byproduct of liposuction can be turned into a potentially therapeutic substance helps explain why smaller clinics are often affiliated with or run by plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery centers.

Some critics have called for more oversight by the FDA. FDA officials, for their part, have said they share the excitement over the theoretical promise of stem cells to treat or cure disease by converting into cell types needed by the patient. But the agency has sounded a cautionary tone over the profusion of stem-cell clinics and studies popping up around the country.

Studies so far have not reliably demonstrated the effectiveness of stem-cell treatments, even in some of the most systematically studied conditions, FDA officials wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in March. This lack of evidence is worrisome.

Turner said that many of the studies advertised on clinicaltrials.gov dont seem geared to produce high-quality data that will be medically useful, especially when they involve open-label study designs, where doctors and patients know what treatments are given, and patients are paying out of their own pockets.

In most clinical trials, study subjects are not charged fees to participate. In contrast, individuals enrolled in what are often called pay-to-participate studies are charged thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, Turners report says. Pay-to-participate studies also risk amplifying placebo effects as a result of the sizable fees companies often charge research participants and the hyperbole used to promote such studies.

Allowing participants to know what treatments are given departs from a typical randomized, blind study in which the intervention is kept secret for a period of time. That practice reduces the risk of a placebo effect, which can run high in medical studies.

A 2010 analysis of studies of irritable bowel syndrome treatments found that nearly 40 percent of 8,400 patients experienced an improvement in their symptoms even though they didnt receive the drug being studied.

Tennessee resident Doug Oliver, a nationally known advocate for stem-cell research who says he was legally blind before his eyes were treated with stem cells, agreed that placebo-controlled trials are the best way to ensure that patients are really being helped by a treatment.

But he argues that the coming age of cellular medicine will also require a wider understanding of how medical evidence is generated.

Oliver said most stem-cell clinics are trying to do the right thing, and many people feel that it wasnt even possible to get true FDA oversight of a stem-cell clinical trial before the signing of the 21st Century Cures Act last December. But even Oliver acknowledges that some clinics have exploited clinicaltrials.gov and disregarded any form of regulation thus far.

You have a group of clinics, which I think is a minority, maybe 20 percent, who are ill-intended, unqualified, or there is a personal and cultural aversion to doing anything that even smacks of following a regulation, he said. There are a number of clinics out there like that, and they are hurting people and they should be shut down.

Originally posted here:
U bioethicist takes on clinics touting stem-cell studies - StarTribune ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Rekha Chhaidwal was at Udaipurs Rabindranath Tagore Medical College to get her daughter vaccinated in 2013 when she saw a signboard for the Divya Mother Milk Bank.

Curious, the 27-year-old walked in, and manager Bhawna Joshi told her about how some mothers donate breast milk so that babies whose moms werent lactating could benefit. Chhaidwal decided immediately to become a donor.

After the initial tests, she found herself holding a pump and expressing excess milk into a bottle. She donated 100 ml and left knowing that her milk could save the life of a newborn in the hospitals neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

That thought excited her so much that she returned to the milk bank 299 times over the next two-and-a-half years and donated a total of 30 litres of breast milk. Chhaidwal is now planning a third child, and will once again continue donating as long as she lactates.

Women like Chhaidwal are good news for non-lactating mothers, malnourished new moms and those with premature babies.

Early initiation of breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding can prevent deaths due to diarrhoea and pneumonia. Five countries China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria alone account for over 236,000 child death every year because of inadequate breast feeding.

In India, the breastfeeding rate is improving and the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 4 findings showed that 41.6% of children under 3 were breastfed within an hour of birth in 2015-16 as compared to 23.4% in 2005-06.

Close to 55% of countrys children are exclusively breastfed, a number that stood at 46% till about a decade ago.

Gayatri Nagda with her husband Lokesh and their elder child. Gayatri read about the Divya milk bank in Udaipur 14 days after delivering their second child, and has donated 25 litres over the past year.

Milk banks are helping bridge the gap. The Divya bank was set up in 2013 by Devendra Agarwal, who ran a neonatal care centre in Udaipur and wanted to ensure that as many newborns were breastfed as possible.

The 74-year-old did some research and discovered that Mewar had a history of dhais or nursemaids, chosen from the pastoral Gujjar community to breastfeed the kings babies for additional nutrition. Panna Dhai, one such nursemaid from the 16th century, is famous for feeding Maharana Udai Singh II, who founded Udaipur as the new capital of the Mewar kingdom after Mughal emperor Akbar conquered Chittorgarh Fort.

This gave Agarwal the idea of setting up a bank of donated milk. Even back then, there was a strict selection process for nursemaids, he says. The royals did a kind of background health check before she was allowed to feed the prince.

At the Divya bank, donors must undergo blood tests before they donate, to rule out any transmittable diseases or infections. The donated milk is pasteurised and kept at -20 degrees Celsius.

Treated correctly, mothers milk can be stored for six months, says Dr BL Meghwal, the banks nodal officer. At room temperature, mothers milk can be used for six hours.

Agarwal, meanwhile, has gone on to set up 10 other human milk banks, and is now adviser to the Rajasthan government on its mother milk bank project. Seven more are in the process of being set up.

RETURNING THE FAVOUR

There are now milk banks across the country, from Udaipur to Delhi, Mumbai and Pune. Among the grateful beneficiaries are Singapore-based management consultant Rakhi Saini, 36.

My second child was born premature, at 29 weeks. For about two weeks, I had no milk. I was so worried, Saini says. Then my doctor at Fortis La Femme told me about human milk banking and that eased my mind. Fortis La Femme opened its milk bank last year and is already collecting enough milk to help sick babies in other hospitals.

Ours is a public milk bank as we not only feed our own babies but also send milk to other hospitals. Its easy to open a bank but difficult to sustain donations, says Dr Raghuram Mallaiah, head of neonatology and founder of the Amaara milk bank. There is a shortage. The milk can stay viable for six months but our stock is exhausted within three or four days.

Among the regular donors right now is Saini, who returned to the hospital as a donor after the birth of third child in May. I thought of my premature baby and how some woman helped her, and I wanted to do the same for someone elses child, she says.

SAVING LIVES

With preterm birth complications being the leading cause of death among children under 5 1 million premature babies die globally every year donated breast milk becomes a vital lifeline.

Of Indias 26 million births, 3.5 million are preterm, of which 300,000 die of associated complications. Breast milk can save an estimated 156,000 of these children each year.

Breast milk is 88% water and the rest is protein, vitamins, minerals, hormones, living cells [stem cells], bacteria etc. that helps in developing a childs immunity, brain, gut health and also maintains hydration for the baby, says Dr Bernd Stahl, R&D director of human milk research at Nutricia Research in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The first human milk bank in Asia opened in Mumbai, in 1989, the brainchild of neonatologist Dr Armida Fernandez. The bank operates out of the citys government-run Sion hospital and is now one of six government-recognised human milk banks across Mumbai and Thane.

At the Sion hospital, we explain to lactating mothers that they can help other babies if they donate excess milk, and most readily agree to do so, says current head of neonatology Dr Jayshree Mondkar, who now runs the milk bank.

There are also mothers whose babies are in the neonatal intensive care unit and need to express milk frequently to ensure the output doesnt drop by the time their babies are ready for it. All this goes into our bank, for free access by premature babies or newborns whose mothers are malnourished or not lactating.

REACHING OUT

With donations falling short across milk banks, Dr Sandhya Khadse, dean of the Rajiv Gandhi Medical College in Thane, suggests bringing the concept of human milk vans to Mumbai, might help ease low supply to banks.

She had helped BJ Medical College start one of Punes first human milk vans, which began door-to-door collection of milk from lactating mothers in August last year.

These vans are fully furnished with electro pumps and sterilised milk storage devices and usually have a resident doctor, nurse and social worker on board. They go to the houses of women who have been recently discharged from neonatal care and have had the necessary screening tests, she says.

Within months, the van had helped double the amount of milk donated to the bank. Collections within the hospital are just not enough, she says.

At Rajiv Gandhi Medical College, anyone can be a donor, as long as you are willing to get a screening test done.

There is also the concept of informal milk sharing among mothers, but we do not recommend it at all, says Dr Fernandez. The mother has to get screening tests done which include an antigen test for Hepatitis B, an HIV test, a test for sexually transmitted and other communicable diseases. The risk of contamination when expressing the milk has to be eliminated. The milk has to be pasteurised and cultured and stored in sterilised stainless steel or glass bottles at -20 degrees Celsius. Unless all these conditions are adequately met, the milk is just not safe for a vulnerable newborn.

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World Breastfeeding Week: How new moms, milk banks are helping save lives - Hindustan Times

John Richardson thought hed found a cure for cancer.

The San Francisco Bay Area doctor had been giving patients a therapy that is essentially a chemical compound found in apricot kernels and known by several names laetrile, amygdalin, vitamin B17. Richardson had been told it could attack tumors, naturally and precisely. It can also convert into potentially poisonous amounts of cyanide when eaten. But Richardson was a true believer.

Yes, the evidence that Vitamin B17 is natures control for cancer is quite overwhelming, he wrote in his book. So the next time you hear an official spokesman for orthodox medicine proclaim that there is none, you might tell him that such a statement is a self-evident absurdity and suggest that he do his homework before posing as an expert.

Less convinced were the police who, on June 2, 1972, barged into Richardsons clinic and jailed him on charges of medical quackery. He eventually lost his medical license and was charged with smuggling laetrile, an illegal drug, into the country.

Now, three decades after Richardsons death, his son, John Richardson Jr., is no stranger to apricot seeds. Through Apricot Power, his thriving e-commerce store, he sells bitter seeds ($32.99 for 1,500), seed extract-based tablets (up to $97.99 a bottle), and B17-infused anti-aging cream ($49.99). Recipes for apricot-seed pesto, egg nog, and marzipan offer a delicious and easy way to work the supposed superfood into your diet, and videos explain why the sites mission is to get B17 into every body! Though Richardson Jr. wont reveal revenue numbers, he says his family operation of around 10 employees has served thousands of customers all over the world since it launched in 1999.

But theres a key difference between his business and his fathers, Richardson Jr. told me: We dont mention the C-word in our company. Cancer, that is. If a customer review on Apricot Powers website even mentions the term, the company leaves a comment pointing out that it doesnt make any disease or illness-related claims about its products. Legally, it cant: The FDA prohibits companies from selling laetrile, under any name, as a cancer treatment, because studies have found it to be at best ineffective, and at worst toxic.

Of course, that doesnt stop dozens of internet entrepreneurs from exploiting regulatory loopholes to sell apricot seeds and B17 tablets, no claims attached and profiting off the efforts of believers who spread the truth about them far and wide. In laetriles heyday in 1981, a doctor called it the slickest, most sophisticated, and certainly the most remunerative cancer quack promotion in medical history. Three decades later, the internet has only spread the gospel, creating an unstoppable, hydra-headed ecosystem of buyers and sellers.

A variety of apricot seed products available online.

If youve never heard that apricot kernels kill and prevent cancer, thats because the government doesnt want you to, proponents say. Cancer, according to them, arises from the lack of a nutrient they call vitamin B17, so it follows that ingesting that nutrient would fight the disease. But regulators, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors cant patent and profit from a natural substance. So they keep it off the market and peddle toxic, invasive, costly, and unnatural chemotherapy and drugs at patients expense.

The internet has created an unstoppable, hydra-headed ecosystem of B17 buyers and sellers.

Or so the theory goes. Vitamin B17 Is Banned Because It Treats Cancer! a post on the site Healthy Food House proclaims; it has been liked, commented on, and shared on Facebook more than 47,000 times since September, according to the social mediatracking tool CrowdTangle. A post about the real story of laetrile, published on a site called The Truth About Cancer, has gotten more than 44,000 likes, comments, and shares since June 2015.

Yin Ling Woo, a gynecological oncologist, recently had to decline when three cancer patients asked her to inject them with liquid B17 vials. They buy it off the internet, it arrives, they have to get someone to administer it, said Woo, who works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Over the last year and a half, public health agencies in the European Union, Canada, and Dubai have issued warnings about apricot kernels and kernel-derived supplements. Since Australia and New Zealand outright blocked the sale of raw kernels in late 2015, retailers have been fined for continuing to sell them. In April, the FDA fired off warning letters to the sellers of more than 65 illegal cancer treatments, including whole apricots and vitamin B17. All the regulators cite the internet as the main source of the problem. Due to the nature of online marketing, some companies attempting to avoid compliance with FDA law simply start new websites and rename fraudulent products, an FDA spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in an email.

In other words, the FDA lacks the power to systematically fix the underlying issue. It can go after apricot kernels advertised as a cancer cure. But it cant crack down when theyre advertised as supplements or plain old seeds. Nor can it control the Facebook posts, YouTube videos, blogs, and tweets that perpetuate the myth.

And when the FDA calls out problematic claims, all a company has to do to escape scrutiny is stop using the phrases in question. But the misimpression that their product is an effective cancer cure will remain out there, uncorrected, in the public eye, said Patti Zettler, an associate professor at Georgia State Universitys law school and a former associate chief counsel at the FDA.

Its no coincidence that B17 is enjoying a second life online, at this moment in time. The internet is rife with misinformation about science and health, and the nutritional supplements business as part of the larger wellness industry is worth billions. Meanwhile, cancer remains a little understood disease that causes nearly 1 in 6 deaths worldwide. So in a way, its comforting and intuitive to blame a fixable vitamin deficiency. Its also wrong.

Felicity Corbin-Wheeler of Jersey, an island south of England, credits intravenous infusions of B17 and a strict diet with shrinking her pancreatic cancer in 2003. She refused chemotherapy, which aligns with her belief that the Western diet has been so hijacked by processed foods, sugars, fats, and salts.

Im all for the natural things, she said, that we get back to a simple life.

Ernst T. Krebs Jr., seen in San Francisco in 1980, was an early promoter of laetrile as a cancer treatment.

A successful salesperson must buy into what theyre selling, and Richardson Jr. is all in. Growing up in the Bay Area suburb of Orinda, he and his seven siblings werent fed sugar or processed wheat, an abstention he keeps up to this day. He says he started eating apricot seeds for his health at age 5. Now 52, hes up to 40 a day.

The seeds contain amygdalin, a compound also found in apple seeds and almonds. In the 1950s, Ernst T. Krebs Jr., a self-described doctor and biochemist with no medical degree, patented a purified form of amygdalin that he called laetrile. He also promoted it as vitamin B17, although its not an officially recognized vitamin.

In 1971, Krebs Jr. shared with the elder Richardson his theory of how this nutrient could stop cancer growth. As Richardson later summarized: [N]atures mechanism will not work if one fails to eat the foods that contain this necessary vitamin, which is exactly what has happened to modern man, whose food supply has become further and further removed from the natural state.

In Richardsons day, laetrilists were just as controversial as the anti-vaccine movement is today. In the 1960s, the FDA banned laetrile and reported that there was no evidence it treated cancer. But over the next decade, more than 70,000 Americans took it anyway. Many of them crossed into Mexico for injections denied by their stateside doctors. Actor Steve McQueen secretly traveled to Baja in 1980 to receive laetrile, among other alternative remedies, for an advanced lung cancer. He died months later. In the mid-70s, a scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center performed experiments that he said showed laetrile helped reduce tumors in mice. A media relations staffer then leaked the data, claiming that hospital executives had sought to cover up and discredit it. Hes been making that claim ever since, including in the 2014 documentary Second Opinion (for the conspiracy-minded only, the Los Angeles Times wrote), and now charges cancer patients $500 for hourlong phone consultations.

In the mid-'70s, laetrilists were just as controversial as the anti-vaccine movement is today.

When the elder Richardson was arrested in 1972 (on charges that were dropped), it prompted his fellow members of the John Birch Society, the far-right conspiracist group of the era, to start a lobbying group to legalize laetrile. Later, Richardson was fined $20,000 and placed on probation on charges of conspiracy to smuggle laetrile from Mexico to the US. Indictments against him and 18 other accused promoters noted that he had deposited $2.5 million in his bank account over two years.

Even so, Richardson Jr. remembers his father, who died in 1988, as very principled, very honest, and very moral, and keeps a picture of him over his desk. Theres still people that contact me and tell me what a wonderful man he was and what a wonderful doctor he was, he said.

After long legal battles, the FDAs laetrile ban ultimately took effect in 1987. In 1999, Richardson Jr. started Apricot Power as an online-only store, but its branched out to health food shops over the last five years to meet customer demand. The company sources apricots from its farm and others in California, removes the flesh, air-dries the pits at the center, cracks them open, and sells the seeds inside.

A lot of the foods, the amygdalins been cooked out of it, said Richardson Jr., who also operates a real estate firm and a restaurant. And my dad believed a normal, healthy person should have 100 milligrams a day of amygdalin. Thats been our company motto since the beginning, is just getting amygdalin back into every body.

It took me no more than a few seconds to find apricot seeds online. A Google search led me to Amazon, where a European vendor was selling a 1-pound bag for $19.99 with this caveat: We do not treat, or aim to cure any disease. Still, its customers leave reviews like Raw Apricot Kernels help to stop Cancer in its tracks and I expect no miracles, but I dont want to die from chemotherapy. The seeds turned out to be chewy and tongue-curlingly bitter, with a long and unpleasant aftertaste.

Amazons algorithm recommended that I also buy the book thats the bible of this movement: World Without Cancer: The Story of Vitamin B17. First published in 1974 and now in its 24th printing, its by G. Edward Griffin, who has no scientific training, denies HIV, and pushes Sept. 11 conspiracy theories.

I tried to interview more than 35 e-commerce shops that sell seeds or supplements labeled as laetrile, amygdalin, or B17. Many declined to talk or never got back to me. A man at Raw Foods and Vitamins turned me down, explaining, The FDA and the government agencies have gone wild, theres so much money in Big Pharma. As soon as theres a little publicity, theyll be all over you. He did, however, text me pro-laetrile books and websites to look up.

Others were more open. Danny Hesman, who runs B17 USA full-time out of Los Angeles, said he has 5,000 repeat customers. I do tell people its not a magic pill, he said. But like some other vendors, hes had a personal experience with cancer in his case, a friend who died from it. I got a front-row seat to the suffering he went through with modern medicine, he said. I know these oncologists, I spoke to their team, they did everything. Its almost career suicide for professionals to even consider alternative therapies, which leaves [B17] in that fringe zone you see when you google vitamin B17. I wish there were some more professionals that would really work on that.

Many vendors, especially those in the US, repeatedly emphasized that they werent claiming to cure, treat, or prevent anything, as if the FDA were listening over the phone. But Our Fathers Farm in Ontario, Canada, sells kernels that may help with cancer prevention and symptoms. Vision B Seventeen in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, claims to have been successfully treating cancer and other degenerative diseases for more than 12 years now.

Regulators have tried to squash these kinds of vendors. Jason Vale, a professional arm wrestler in New York City, sold seeds as a cure on his website, Apricots From God, because he believed theyd healed his kidney cancer. He also spammed people with millions of email ads. But in 2003, Vale was sentenced to five years in prison for criminal contempt of a court injunction sought by the FDA to stop him selling.

Laetrile (i.e. Vitamin B17) therapy is one of the most popular and best known alternative cancer treatments.

B17 merchants may have been deterred by his conviction, but not defeated. Until recently, Oxygen Health Systems allegedly told customers, Laetrile (i.e. Vitamin B17) therapy is one of the most popular and best known alternative cancer treatments. This spring, the FDA slammed Oxygen with a warning letter for making that and other unsupported health claims. According to the agency, which sent similar warnings to 13 other businesses, Oxygen had also illegally described vitamin C, the fruit graviola, and flax seed oil as cancer therapies.

Owner Michael Carroll said by phone that many of his products personally helped him fight off non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He scrubbed the language targeted by the FDA. But he didnt seem too worried that his business would take a hit, or that his promises could have harmed someone.

Were continuing to work to make the best corrections to make our website as blah as possible, so consumers remain uneducated, said Carroll, who lives near Chicago. When we spoke in early May, Oxygen was still selling B17 bottles for up to $97; theyve since been taken down.

But you can still get them from Amygdalin Supply. Call to place an order and you might chat, as I did, with customer service rep Carlos Olguin in Guadalajara, Mexico. I asked him if, in his opinion, what he was selling could really treat cancer. His customers, he replied, were all the proof he needed.

If you go to a store and buy a product and the product doesnt work for you, would you buy again? he asked. Of course not, because the product does not work. Thats the thing I see. The same people who buy are the same people who are going to buy next and next and next.

Sandi Rog, a novelist outside Denver, Colorado, says that B17 saved her and can save others, too. She spreads the message on her blog, I Beat Cancer with Vitamin B17, and in three YouTube videos with a total of more than 956,000 views.

When Rog was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins T-cell lymphoma in late 2010, doctors put her through chemotherapy, radiation, and a stem cell transplant in an attempt to reinvigorate her immune system, she said. But tumors kept popping up. After a naturopathic doctor gave her dozens of supplements, she eventually narrowed them down to a regimen of juicing, pancreatic enzymes, and B17, which she began reading about and ordering online. She also stopped taking her prescribed immunosuppressant drugs. By the end of 2012, she said, the tumors were gone and she was in remission.

It makes me so angry, because people are being ripped off. "

All I know is Im cancer-free, she said, and its because of this.

Catherine Fox found Rogs videos very impressive when she started researching B17 as a preventative measure against cancer. Her parents, five aunts, and three uncles have all died of various cancers, she says. Then, about three years ago, she felt a lump in her breast the moment shed been dreading. So she started taking kernels. Thats likely why, she thinks, the lump ended up being harmless.

It seemed to just go down and go away, said Fox, who lives in Kells, Ireland, and, just to be safe, still eats two seeds every morning.

But Liz Beggs says that these stories offer a sense of false hope that harms people like her late niece, Charlene Campbell.

Campbell had a daughter who, not long after she was born, developed a rare, aggressive brain cancer and died. More than five years later, Campbell developed cancer, too, in her breast. Having watched her daughter undergo chemotherapy and radiation, she was determined to avoid them herself. So she started juicing, eating an all-vegetarian diet, and ordering cannabis oil and apricot seeds online. She said, This is my journey, its my body, I have to do it on my own, recalled Beggs, who lives in Northern Ireland. Youre either with me or against me.

Beggs understood why Campbell distrusted conventional therapies, but at the same time, we were so fearful, she said. Campbells tumor kept growing until she finally agreed to have a mastectomy. Then new tumors sprouted in her liver and spine.

Campbell died in October 2015, soon after her 33rd birthday. By the end, she was up to 40 apricot kernels a day, her aunt said.

It makes me so angry because people are being ripped off, Beggs said. That fear that engulfs a person when theyre diagnosed with cancer, they want to hold on to something thats positive, not the medical route. They want to hold on to this sick holistic path of believing in kernel seeds and whatever else across the internet.

Promoters of this all-natural cure cant agree on one name for it amygdalin, laetrile, Laetrile with a capital L, B17? Nor do they agree on how much to take and how often. Nor is there a way to ensure that the many seeds, pills, powders, and liquids in which it can take form are chemically consistent. All these variables make it hard to study its supposedly wondrous effects.

A 2015 review looked at the available studies of laetrile and amygdalin in humans and found no reliable evidence that they could cure cancer. On the whole, it concluded, the chances of bad side effects made the risks unambiguously negative.

In 1982, the Mayo Clinic put 178 cancer patients on laetrile, enzymes, vitamins, and a restricted diet, a regimen based on several laetrile doctors recommendations. When it came to getting cured, seeing their symptoms improve or disease stabilize, or living longer, they didnt substantially improve. On average, they survived less than five months after starting treatment.

I do remember some of the patients wanting it to be continued, believing it was working even though their tumor had clearly grown, they had gotten weaker and clearly more sick, said Gregory Sarna, a study co-author who was a UCLA oncologist at the time. That did not dissuade some of them from their belief that it was working.

Several patients also showed signs of poisoning, like nausea and vomiting, and blood levels of cyanide known to be fatal.

It doesnt take much. More than three small kernels, or less than half a large one, can be unsafe for adults, according to a report for the European Food Safety Authority. Even one small kernel can be toxic for toddlers. From 2000 to 2004, there were reports of 260 children poisoned by kernels in Turkey, where they are a common snack. One 2-year-old girl was severely poisoned and died after she ate 10 seeds. Laetrile fans, however, tend to promote much higher doses: One blogger cites World Without Cancers recommendation of 3 to 5 seeds per waking hour to treat cancer, and 7 to 10 a day to prevent it.

None of these contradictions faze consumers, who say scientists and doctors design studies to fail. They question whether people have really gotten sick or died from apricot kernels and if they did, they probably took way too much. (I never had a bad experience, said Elif Ercanli, who grew up eating seeds in Istanbul, Turkey.) The most theyll admit to is a bad side effect here or there. Rog said she once took nine in a 12-hour span and my blood pressure crashed so low, I was in bed, I had tingling in my fingers and toes.

When I asked people to explain how amygdalin works, they paraphrased, or told me to look up, World Without Cancer. According to Griffin, when amygdalin dissolves in body fluids and produces hydrogen cyanide, the cyanide only goes after cancer cells because of a special enzyme they contain thats vulnerable to attack.

That explanation doesnt make sense to Sarna, who is now an oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He points out that cancer cells differ even within a single tumor which is usually why when a treatment destroys some cells, others remain untouched. To say [one enzyme] is a general characteristic of cancer would need a study of hundreds of thousands of fresh cancers, all different cancers, he said. Ive never seen that done.

Theres no doctor in the world who doesnt want to help their patient get better. I never quite understood why theres this conspiracy theory that doctors or pharmaceutical companies would have an interest in suppressing something that works."

Even if there were one magical mechanism that unlocked the cure to cancer, Wendy Chen, a breast oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, takes offense at the notion that physicians would cover it up.

Theres no doctor in the world who doesnt want to help their patient get better, she said. I never quite understood why theres this common conspiracy theory that doctors or pharmaceutical companies would have an interest in hiding or suppressing something that works.

Nevertheless, Griffins theories still light up Facebook groups like Cancer! Is B17 the cure? Brandon Clark, who says apricot seeds and B17 tablets got rid of a skin cancer on his nose, moderates the 3,000-person group. When he started contributing, he read B17 books and talked to B17-prescribing doctors to make sure people had the best information possible. Clark, who lives near Tacoma, Washington, prefers to share that research on Facebook because its much more popular than Twitter and Myspace and anything else, he said. I felt like I could reach more people.

Hes not wrong.

Theyre preying on people who are vulnerable and ill, Beggs said of people like Clark. Its just so not right. It makes me angry. Theyre being brainwashed. Charlenes proof of that.

The bottom of Apricot Power's Ground SuperFood Mix.

Apricot kernel devotees are fond of a certain Bible verse, Genesis 1:29: Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. There is an intuitive appeal to this implicit idea, that a higher force designed a natural substance to fight off a devastating and inexplicable disease.

Cancer kills 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women in the US. And surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation can sound frightening on their own, since they involve cutting open the body and flooding it with drugs and X-rays. The side effects range from unpleasant to downright unbearable.

Theyre preying on people who are vulnerable and ill. Its just so not right. It makes me angry. Theyre being brainwashed."

So there has always been an appetite, to some degree, for alternative therapies. And because of the enormous power of placebos, people often do feel better after taking them. In 1979, when the Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill cancer patients did not have the right to access laetrile, it noted that entrepreneurs had long hawked cancer cures like liniments of turpentine, mustard, oil, eggs, and ammonia; peat moss; arrangements of colored floodlamps; pastes made from glycerin and limburger cheese; mineral tablets; and Fountain of Youth mixtures of spices, oil, and suet.

But in 2017, once-fringe natural remedies are no longer distinct from the mainstream obsession with wellness, now a $3.7 trillion industry spanning organic food, yoga, meditation apps, anti-aging lotions and dietary supplements. Lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow and alt-right fearmonger Alex Jones peddle silver nanoparticles and obscure mushrooms. In addition to being taken by 150 million people in the US, supplements are barely regulated, can contain anything, arent proven to help health, and send at least 20,000 Americans to the emergency room annually.

The fact there is a resurgence of interest in selling and utilization of what is essentially an ineffective treatment is concerning, and it points to general problems with the supplement market, said Ameet Sarpatwari, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, of B17. The amount of money being spent out there in supplements is huge. You would think that it should be more well-regulated than it is.

The wellness industrial complex is built upon vague pronouncements and falsehoods about how nutrition and bodies work, like the (unsupported) myth that genetically modified food is unsafe to eat. But if you buy into that, then perhaps its not so crazy to also believe that, say, the Hunza, an indigenous group in northern Pakistan, are cancer-free thanks to their apricot-heavy diet. (According to anthropologists, there are no credible studies to support the claim, which is central to the B17 ideology.)

The fact there is a resurgence of interest in selling and utilization of what is essentially an ineffective treatment is concerning, and it points to general problems with the supplement market.

As the internet breathes new life into health myths, it complicates the relationship between patients and doctors. No longer are physicians the main or exclusive source of medical information when people can Google a remedy, buy it on Amazon, and tell their Facebook friends about it.

So when cancer patients get excited about laetrile, or any other alternative therapy, doctors must balance the evidence, or lack thereof, with the desperation of people often on the verge of death. People need control over something that they cannot control, and that is very, very frustrating, and I sense it with every person I treat, said Don Dizon, clinical co-director of gynecologic oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and a spokesperson for the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Natural, though, does not mean safe. Toxins, cyanide included, abound in the natural world. All that matters is what are the benefits and harms, what is known for certain and what is merely unknown, said Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist at Oregon Health and Science University, by email.

One patient of Prasads wanted to try high doses of vitamin C, but resisted radiation therapy because it seemed unnatural. Of course, Prasad noted, both vitamin C and radiation are naturally occurring, and both high dose [vitamin C] and a radiation machine are a human manipulation of something natural, so I wasnt sure there is a difference.

Dizon isnt always confident that chemotherapy will work, particularly in people whose cancer has returned, so he encourages some of them to push back. Hes even seen some tumors shrink after patients have taken natural remedies and hes accepted that he cant explain why. Sometimes, doctors say, a person may not actually have cancer in the first place, due to an incorrect diagnosis or misinterpreted biopsy. Or tumors can shrink due to other therapies that a patient has forgotten about or hasnt revealed.

Regardless, a couple moving anecdotes arent license to recommend an unproven remedy. That would be wrong, because thats not data, Dizon said. Thats not the same thing as saying, Your mom has ovarian cancer. If shes taking treatment, she has a 30% chance of cure and an 80% chance of going quite some time, even maybe years, before her cancer comes back.

With alternative therapies, the success stories that people cling to tend to be more isolated than they think. Youre not hearing the other side of that the patients who took it and died within weeks or whose cancers really grew, he said.

Vitamin B17, by any name, will never disappear. Its story by now has taken on mythical proportions that cannot be censored.

New advances in cancer treatment may one day make apricot seeds obsolete. But until even if all these therapies become the new and highly successful standard of care, some segment of laetrile believers will continue to buy in.

At Apricot Power, Richardson Jr. is busy rolling out products such as chocolate bars with chopped-up apricot seeds. (What a tasty way to get natural B17 in your diet! the website proclaims.)

What would his father think of all this? Hed be happy, Richardson Jr. answered, because he predicted that someday people would discover that nutrition was the answer to healthy living. He added, Lots of people believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Jul. 31, 2017, at 16:48 PM

This story has been updated to state that Felicity Corbin-Wheeler received B17 through intravenous therapy. An earlier version of this story misstated the method by which she received it.

Stephanie Lee is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

Contact Stephanie M. Lee at stephanie.lee@buzzfeed.com.

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These People Are Making Money Off A Bogus Cancer Cure That Doctors Say Could Poison You - BuzzFeed News

Photo courtesy of Kamloops This Week.

By: Jessica Wallace (Kamloops This Week)

Gail Walsh didnt want to spend the rest of her days waiting.

The 72-year-old retired Peachland woman said she needed surgical procedures on both knees, hip, neck and back, but didnt want to sit on the waiting list. Instead, she researched alternatives and learned about a doctor in Kelowna offering private stem-cell treatment.

The retired teachers aid committed $6,500 with the hopes of checking some items off her list of procedures.

I thought, I can just see the rest of my days, waiting for surgery after surgery, then recuperating in between, Walsh told KTW. It just seemed to me it was worth the money to try.

Helping people on wait lists is among reasons why a longtime Kamloops neurosurgeon recently began offering stem-cell treatment, despite the fact the procedure is not approved by Health Canada.

The expense [of stem-cell treatment], itll never be offered in the public system, so Canada will be behind the rest of the world, Dr. Richard Brownlee told KTW.Lots of people will do medical tourism, theyll go to Mexico or the States or Germany or whatever to get treatment thats not available here. Wait lists are the other thing.People wait for a year to get a MRI, so if they dont have to wait, they can come in and get one in less than a week or two.

The Welcome Back Centre, a private pain-management clinic on Columbia Street, began offering stem-cell treatment three months ago.

Stem cells are prevalent in humans and can be extracted to help treat degenerative, inflammatory or autoimmune conditions, Brownlee said.

Under the right conditions, stem cells can adapt into other cells. Someone with arthritis may have stem cells injected into a joint to create new cartilage, while athletes may treat soft tissue after a muscle tear, he said.

Brownlee noted the medicine is evolving, even being used to slow down symptoms of but not cure amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrigs Disease.)

Stem cells are what do the repairing, Brownlee said. So, if youre putting a big number of those locally at the site of where the injury is, it just encourages healing.

Controversy has surrounded embryonic stem-cell harvest from fetuses. Brownlee said it is both unethical and risky, being that young cells have the potential to change into anything, including cancer.

Much like organ transplant, there is also the risk of the body rejecting them. Brownlees office extracts stem cells from the adults who are receiving them.

If youre taking it directly from the person and processing it and putting it right back in, theres no issues with it, he said.

Brownlee said stem-cell treatment is ideal for people who either havent healed adequately or who have developed degenerative changes over time. Ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 per treatment, it is often sought as a last resort.

The centre has treated about a half-dozen knees and hips and is expanding into other treatments.

Nothing has 100 per cent effectiveness, but most of the conditions, about 85 per cent of people get benefit, Brownlee said.

In offering the first treatment of its kind in the city, Brownlee is educating the public and keeping up with new developments. He just got back from a conference in Beverly Hills through the Cell Surgical Network and said he is looking at joining the group to gain access to data from more than 7,000 cases.

Its just new and different and its something that will probably never be offered through the public system, he said.

As for Walsh, seven weeks after her first treatment, she said its too early to determine if the procedure was successful. Relief could take up to nine months.

All I know is so far, theres nothing harmful done, she said.

Future of stem cells

While Dr. Richard Brownlee said stem-cell treatment will likely never be offered publicly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last year announced $20 million in funding to the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine to help establish a stem-cell therapy development facility in Toronto.

Regenerative medicine is the future and not only is it the future, its a branch of medicine that Canada and the province of Ontario are actually quite good at, Trudeau was quoted at the time in a story in the Globe and Mail about the announcement.

The medical advances and innovations happening right here in Toronto are world class.

Common applications:

Knees: partial to complete ligament tears, osteoarthritis, partial to complete meniscal tears, augmented ACL or PCL reconstruction;

Shoulder: partial to complete rotator cuff tears, labral tears, osteoarthritis;

Foot and ankle: tendon inflammation, osteoarthritis, patron to complete Achilles tendon tear;

Elbow, wrist and hand: partial to complete ligament tears, epicondylitis, osteoarthritis;

Spine: discogenic back pain, facet arthritis, degenerative disc disease;

Hip: osteoarthritis, labral tears, articular cartilage injuries, avascular necrosis.

Did you know?

Stem cells can be injected locally or delivered intravenously.

Gordie Howe underwent stem-cell therapy after having a stroke and responded well. His family said it helped him walk again, improved his speech and helped him gain weight.

Fat contains 100 to 1,000 times more stem cells than bone marrow.

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Stem-cell treatment arrives in Kamloops - Merritt Herald

Dr. Stephen A. Rath, Fusion Medical Spa & Wellness in Ruidoso, New Mexico

Ruidoso, New Mexico (PRWEB) June 26, 2017

A new and improved Orgasm-Shot addressing female sexual dysfunction, anorgasmia, and urinary leakage is revolutionizing the way women look and feel about themselves and their sexual encounters. A unique medical practice in New Mexico is tackling the problem of female sexual dysfunction and urinary leakage head on with a ground breaking medical technique aimed to give women the pleasurable experiences they desire! Women are happy to repurpose fat cells from their bellies to their vaginas in an effort to increase sensation, orgasm frequency, and eliminate bladder leakage all done in office.

At Fusion Medical Spa & Wellness in Ruidoso, New Mexico, Dr. Stephen A. Rath is turning to the very latest in non-surgical aesthetic medicine to address sexual concerns for women. Dr. Rath is one of the countrys premier providers of Autologous Lipocyte Micronized Injection (ALMI). This ground breaking procedure allows Dr. Rath to use a patients own adipose (fat) tissue to restore volume, texture, tone and sensation to the vaginal area. This revolutionary rejuvenation procedure restores function, while repairing and regenerating damaged tissue.

During the ALMI procedure done in office at Fusion Medical Spa & Wellness, the fat tissue is typically collected from the lower abdomen in less than 30 minutes and processed through specialized equipment, which micronizes and activates stem cells and growth factors. Coupled with the self-healing power of platelet rich plasma (PRP) from the patients blood, the fat tissue is injected into targeted areas of the vaginal area, according to patient needs. Urinary leakage, prolapse of the bladder walls, and decreased ability to reach sexual arousal are areas of greatest concern to patients at Fusion Medical Spa & Wellness. Of the women treated with the ALMI O-Shot by Dr. Rath, an unprecedented 100% have reported an increase in orgasm during subsequent sexual encounters, with most women also reporting having reached orgasm at least 90% of the time which is always Dr. Raths goal in treating women struggling with sexual dysfunction in his practice!

As the stem cell-rich adipose tissue, PRP and growth factors stimulate collagen, blood vessels and tissue at the site of injection, results are expected to be long term. Additionally, because Dr. Rath injects with both function and aesthetics in mind, patients at Fusion Medical Spa & Wellness can expect the added benefit of an immediate volumizing effect within, as well as outside the delicate vaginal area. This additional volume is also expected to last, as the surrounding tissue regenerates from the stem cell-rich injections. Patients struggling with urinary incontinence have reported a loss of the need to wear panty liners since receiving the ALMI O-Shot by Dr. Rath a freedom for which these women cannot thank him enough!

Once considered taboo topics only discussed with close girlfriends, simple solutions for female sexual problems and incontinence are becoming more widely pursued in doctors offices across the country. Fortunately, now women no longer have to live with the effects of age, childbirth and a socially-accepted norm that reaching orgasm every now and then is sufficient!

Dr. Rath offers this highly innovative approach as one element of a comprehensive medical program designed to achieve whole-body wellness through functional and integrative medicine. More than just a run-of-the-mill med spa, Fusion Medical Spa & Wellness is a concierge medical practice integrating a wide range of medical and aesthetic specialties, including bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, medical weight loss, as well as anti-aging and aesthetic treatment options.

Dr. Stephen A. Rath is a Board Certified Anesthesiologist who focuses on cutting-edge aesthetic, functional, and integrative medicine with a unique focus on sexual health. He is a consulting physician to Allergan for their entire portfolio of injectable rejuvenation treatments, including Botox, Kybella and their newest injectable, Allure. Dr. Rath is a certified trainer for The Vampire Facelift, ALMI and regenerative orthopedics and sports medicine. Unlike most medical spas, Fusion Medical Spa & Wellness offers anesthesia and sedation for all non-surgical procedures, part of Dr. Raths continued commitment to prioritize patient health, well-being and safety.

If you would like more information about Dr. Stephen A. Raths cutting-edge approach to womens sexual health or on the functional and aesthetic medicine offered at Fusion Medical Spa & Wellness, please contact Dr. Rath at 855.257.4SPA (4772) or contact(at)fusionmedicalspa(dot)net. http://fusionmedicalspa.net/

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Dr. Rath's New O-Shot Uses Fat Cells to Shatter the Gender Orgasm Gap & Eliminate Urinary Leakage for Women - PR Web (press release)