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Beware Scam “Clinical Trials” That Ask You to Pay Money for Unproven Therapies

Discussion in 'Biomedical Engineering' started by Ghada Ali youssef, Aug 5, 2017.

  1. Ghada Ali youssef

    Ghada Ali youssef Golden Member

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    Clinical trials are how we test new medicines and therapies, and they can be a boon to patients: if current treatments haven’t worked for you, you can help to test out a new one. And as thanks for being a guinea pig, your medical costs are paid and you may even get some extra compensation.

    But sketchy stem-cell clinics are now using the National Institutes of Health’s clinical trials registry, ClinicalTrials.gov, as a platform to advertise their pricey services. Ars Technica reports here on the findings from an analysis published inRegenerative Medicine that calls out problematic studies found on the site.

    The registry is still legit—it’s an important way for scientists to keep track of trials—but some of the listings on it are from stem-cell clinics that charge patients to participate, and do not have approval from the FDA to test their treatments. Some describe themselves with words like “patient funded,” while others don’t explain that you have to pay until you’re signing up for the trial.

    Pay-to-participate studies are fraught with ethical problems and often don’t make for good scientific findings anyway. They tend not to be published in peer-reviewed journals, they don’t compare the treatment with a placebo (nobody would pay thousands for a fake treatment, after all), and sometimes the scientific study never happens.

    The problematic listings include studies by Ageless Regenerative Institute, Cell Surgical Network, Kimera Society Inc, Retina Associates of South Florida, MD Stem Cells, and StemGenix. StemGenix is currently facing a fraud lawsuit, and earlier this year three people lost their vision after paying US Stem Cell $5000 for stem-cell treatments that were listed as clinical trials.

    There isn’t a surefire way to avoid sketchy clinics, but it’s good to be wary of “clinical trials” that ask you to pay a fee for your treatment.

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