Stem cell hard sell

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Stem cells are cells with superpowers. They can become many different types of cells in our bodies, from muscle cells to brain cells, and some can even repair tissue. But the remarkable promise of this exciting new field of medicine has led to a new booming market of private clinics, which offer to treat a range of conditions (from arthritis to autism) using regenerative therapies which they claim harness the healing powers of stem cells. In this first of two programmes, Lesley Curwen investigates this expanding industry in the UK and Europe and discovers that these treatments are often unproven, unregulated and can cause harm. She reports on disturbing cases of UK patients who have suffered infection, blood clots and even sight loss and hears from orthopaedic surgeons concerned that these so called stem cell therapies are jumping ahead of the science. And Lesley finds out how these procedures, which often cost thousands of dollars for each treatment, are operating under a loophole in EU Directives which govern the law in this area. There’s an exemption and the actual stem cell material being injected into you, may not be regulated at all. Picture: Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can specialized through mitosis to many other cell types of multicellular organisms, Credit: selvanegra/Getty Images

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about. So if you
0:36.1	fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	Hello and welcome to Discovery on the BBC. I'm Leslie Cohen and I'm looking at the potent attraction of stem cells
0:48.0	the cells with superpowers to turn into other cells or repair tissue. They hold huge promise for future
0:55.4	medical discoveries. But the mystique or hype that's grown up around them has led
1:00.9	to a booming market in unproven treatments around the world.
1:05.0	In this, the first of two programs, I'll be looking at what's happening in Europe.
1:10.0	And first, I went to see the cutting edge of highly regulated stem cell treatments in the UK
1:17.0	to meet someone whose life could be changed for good.
1:20.0	Well, my name's Anne. I'm married with two kids, a four-year-old and one-year-old.
1:27.9	And I'm a good fortune to be sitting here trying to heal the disease that could potentially take all that away from me.
1:34.8	Anne has MS, multiple sclerosis.
1:38.3	She was diagnosed in 2011 with the most common type of this autoimmune disease,
1:43.0	relapsing remitting.
1:45.0	It is a brutal condition
	...

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