![]() The Food and Drug Administration is attempting to shut down clinics that hawk unapproved stem cell therapies, which have been linked to several cases of blindness and at least 12 serious infections. But critics suggest the hospitals are exploiting desperate patients and profiting from trendy but unproven treatments. Hospitals say they’re providing options to patients who have exhausted standard treatments. Many patients seek out regenerative medicine to stave off surgery, even though the evidencesupporting these experimental therapies is thin at best, Knoepfler said. Typical treatments involve injecting patients’ joints with their own fat or bone marrow cells, or with extracts of platelets, the cell fragments known for their role in clotting blood. Swedish is one of a growing number of respected hospitals and health systems- including the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Miami- that have entered the lucrative business of stem cells and related therapies, including platelet injections. It was sponsored by Swedish Medical Center, the largest nonprofit health provider in the Seattle area. But the marketing video wasn’t filmed by a little-known operator. Paul Knoepfler, a professor of cell biology and human anatomy at the University of California-Davis School of Medicine. The video’s cheerleading tone mimics the infomercials used to promote stem cell clinics, several of which have recently gotten into hot water with federal regulators, said Dr. Critics suggest the hospitals are exploiting desperate patients and profiting from trendy but unproven treatments.
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