Rogue Stem Cell Clinics Hawking Untested Treatments Irk FDA

Stem cell clinics selling unproven and potentially dangerous medical treatments for everything from hip pain to Lou Gehrig’s disease face a bigger crackdown from the FDA, the agency’s biologics chief said.

“I’m pretty sure you’ll see ramped-up activity over the next year and half,” Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, said May 4 at the Association of Health Care Journalists conference. “We want to make sure nobody has mistakes about our intentions to be serious.”

Federal authorities have been going after these stem cell clinics for the past several ...