Sham Stem Cell Studies Force NIH to Weed Its Research Database

Posting information on the ClinicalTrials.gov website about treatments derived from stem cells does not mean the products are government-approved. That doesn’t stop unscrupulous companies from misleading patients into believing treatments have been endorsed by federal authorities. The National Institutes of Health has had enough.

Profit Motives: Some for-profit stem cell clinics are offering treatments that put patients at risk. In one particularly notorious case, several patients went blind.

Protocols Help: The NIH, which runs the website, has already beefed up its disclaimer. But bioethicists want the agency to do more, like requiring submissions to include the study protocol that provides ...