Manila, Philppines -- The Philippine Medical Association (PMA) yesterday sounded the alarm over the proliferation of ''fly-by-night'' clinics offering alleged illegal ''stem cell'' treatment in the country.
The warning came from PMA President and spokesperson of the Philippine Society for Stem Cell Medicine (PSSCM) Dr. Leo O. Olarte as he bared on Sunday what he described as disturbing reports of deaths arising from complications from alleged ''stem cell therapy'' of some Filipino politicians who underwent stem cell treatment.
Olarte, however, declined to name the politicians when he gave his warning to the public against alleged illegal stem cell treatments offered in the Philippines by foreign doctors using xenogenic, an animal derived ''stem cell'' sources.
''The only approved source of stem cell therapy by the Department of Health (DOH) are the Autologous (self) Adult Stem Cells which can be derived only from the patient's own blood, bone marrow and fat because this is the safest and proven procedure that is available worldwide today. Any other source outside the patient's own body can result to death due to severe complications specifically graft versus host reaction, immediate or delayed hypersensitivity reaction and severe infections '' he said.
''Stem cells are our own natural healers or repair cells. Our immune system are our body's own defense system against anything that can harm us (infections, etc). The immune system is therefore tasked to recognize our very own cells or tissues (self) and thus not attack it,'' he added.
The PMA president claimed that ''foreign objects'' like the xenogenic (animal and plant based stem cells) and allogenic (stem cells from other humans and not the patient himself) stem cells when injected to a particular patient are automatically tagged as non self or foreign bodies by the patient's immune system.
He said the xenogenic or allogenic stem cells are automatically rejected or destroyed by the patient's own immune system before they can even spread to the patient's body to allegedly heal them.
''So where is the so-called ''stem cell effect'' that these unscrupulous people promise in exchange for millions of pesos? In legal lingo we call it a scam, '' Olarte claimed.
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Public warned on ‘stem-cell’ therapy