Researchers try to protect patients from stem cell charlatans

The International Society for Stem Cell Research has launched a patient education website “to smoke out the charlatans” who prey upon desperately ill people and their families, said Irving Weissman.

“I don’t think that any society has ever done this before,” the Stanford University researcher and president of the society said in addressing the opening of their annual meeting on 16 June, in San Francisco.

The problem is large and growing. A recent web search identified more than 200 practitioners or clinics making claims for stem cell cures, most of the operations are located in developing countries where regulatory oversight is weak. One location in China claims …