Archive for the ‘Ethical, legal and social issues’ Category
Ask, Ask, Ask: The views of patients and the public should inform stem cell treatments and research
Co-authored with Geoff Lomax, CIRM’s Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group from the “Understanding Stem Cell Controversies” Workshop organized by the Stem Cell Network in Montreal. This article is cross-posted on the CIRM blog. The afternoon session on Day 2 at the Understanding Stem Cell Controversies workshop began picking apart the complex relationship between research…Read more
Stem cell tourism, safe, effective & routine? Not so much.
Co-authored with Geoff Lomax, CIRM’s Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group from the “Understanding Stem Cell Controversies” Workshop organized by the Stem Cell Network in Montreal. This article is cross-posted on the CIRM blog. Dr. Harry Atkins speaking at Understanding Stem Cell Controversies in Montreal. “Stem cell tourism” “medical tourism” “unproven cell therapies” –…Read more
How does the U.S. public rate the FDA’s performance?
. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ongoing efforts to assert its authority to regulate U.S.-based companies that offer unlicensed stem cell therapies (Regenerative Sciences or Celltex, for example) has prompted a mixed response from the regenerative medicine community. On the one hand, getting an unlicensed treatment has many potential downsides, so the FDA’s…Read more
State politics and the stem cell policy environment in the United States
- The regenerative medicine community greeted last month’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the legality of the Obama Administration’s stem cell policy with relief. The court found that federal funding of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research is consistent with existing statutes, such as the Dickey-Wicker Amendment. The principal implication of this…Read more
High stakes: Unpublished research brings big profits and huge losses – to insider traders
- Nature kicked off 2013 with an unsettling article about how privileged information from research studies is being used to garner gigantic returns for investors, large and small. It’s not surprising, considering that one of the most egregious cases of so called academic information being used for insider trading of stock in public companies, Elan…Read more
Innovation without protection is philanthropy
This year, your household will pay $360 for the use of Intellectual Property (IP) held by people and corporations outside of Canada. For a little less than a dollar a day, you’re supporting industries like biotechnology, high-tech electronics, and engineering in other countries. Two policy think-tanks believe it’s time for Canadians to flip that balance…Read more
Finding the positive in the hype about stem cells
“Stem Cells Make Aging Mice Young Again” – ABC News “’Factor X’ — Have we finally found the fountain of youth?” – Fox News “Stem cells, the secret to eternal youth?” – Euronews.com Headlines like these are all too common and underscore how the news media’s coverage of regenerative medicine tends to focus on the…Read more
Cell therapy industry 2027: The increasing (but not necessarily stifling) scope of regulation
Some words have the ability to induce instant and unexplained anxiety. In developing industries, such as cell therapy, one such example is regulation – of any sort. Crudely, our negative perception of regulation can be attributed to two factors: an aversion to both ‘red tape’ and uncertainty. In reality, regulation (when appropriately devised and implemented)…Read more
What if the game changes again? Perfect ES models in sight
While the 2012 US election was in full swing, I reminded readers that despite the dominance of the world’s economic problems in this cycle, stem cell research was a political issue that hadn’t completely gone away.Methods to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) have constantly improved over the past few years, elegantly positioning…Read more
Stem cell pseudoscience in the courts?
Patients contemplating medical travel for the purpose of receiving scientifically unproven stem cell treatments may wish to consider one more potential side effect: the possibility of losing their eligibility for health status-related compensation and benefits. In May 2012, a United States appeal court affirmed an earlier New York district court decision to deny disability and…Read more