Government Run Wild: Your Body is a Drug Subject to FDA Regulation

[n_huffhines]

In another outrageous power-grab, FDA says your own stem cells are drugs—and stem cell therapy is interstate commerce because it affects the bottom line of FDA-approved drugs in other states!

FDA

 

[DEFENDTHISHOUSE]

My goodness, is there no end to the nightmare.

 

[PKT_VOL]

I don't know which is more ridiculous, the fact that your own unabridged adult stem cells constitute the FDA's definition of "drugs" or their abuse of the commerce clause.

 

[KiffinKiller]

crooks!

 

[YorkVol]

This is interesting. It seems the FDA is trying to get in front of a large explosion of stem cell treatments on the horizon. There have been a lot of recent developments with harvesting stem cells from body fat and research is underway for treatments from regenerating breast tissue after a mastectomy to some promising MS treatments. Here are a couple of articles from last year:
Human Body's Fat Seen As best Source of Stem Cells For Regenerative Therapies - Forbes
Stem cells 'able to reverse symtoms of multiple sclerosis' - Telegraph
Extracting stem cells from fat for tissue regeneration

In my view we need to be encouraging these developments and not trying to control them. The FDA has no business regulating the business part of medicine, they need to worry about the quality control aspects and let the market drive developments. But, we all know the largest lobbies are the pharmaceutical companies and this is the FDA/Federal Government doing their bidding.

 

[PKT_VOL]

This is interesting. It seems the FDA is trying to get in front of a large explosion of stem cell treatments on the horizon. There have been a lot of recent developments with harvesting stem cells from body fat and research is underway for treatments from regenerating breast tissue after a mastectomy to some promising MS treatments. Here are a couple of articles from last year:
Human Body's Fat Seen As best Source of Stem Cells For Regenerative Therapies - Forbes
Stem cells 'able to reverse symtoms of multiple sclerosis' - Telegraph
Extracting stem cells from fat for tissue regeneration

In my view we need to be encouraging these developments and not trying to control them. The FDA has no business regulating the business part of medicine, they need to worry about the quality control aspects and let the market drive developments. But, we all know the largest lobbies are the pharmaceutical companies and this is the FDA/Federal Government doing their bidding.

I hate to rain on the parade, but those articles are very misleading about the viability of stem cells as treatment anytime soon. They give way more hope than they ought to. That said, given enough capital investment and time (a least a decade), stem cell research will be far more advanced and will hopefully become viable treatments for a wide variety of illnesses.

The false promise of stem cells has become the twenty-first century snake-oil medicine. Many, many, patients with debilitating diseases such as ALS, Huntington's, MS, terminal cancer, etc are coerced into very expensive and completely ineffective treatments in foreign countries. They feed on their desperateness by offering false hope at the expense of their life savings. Really sad.

 

[YorkVol]

I agree that none of these treatments are viable yet and I couldn't link the article I was actually looking for since I'm at work and it has pictures of (gasp) breasts. But, Wired has done a couple of pieces on recent research developments that are very promising in the realm of regeneration.

My real point, poorly made, was that the FDA seems to be trying to control this line of research because of the influence of the big pharma lobby. This tells me that they may be seeing a real threat to their bottom line.

 

[PKT_VOL]

I agree that none of these treatments are viable yet and I couldn't link the article I was actually looking for since I'm at work and it has pictures of (gasp) breasts. But, Wired has done a couple of pieces on recent research developments that are very promising in the realm of regeneration.

My real point, poorly made, was that the FDA seems to be trying to control this line of research because of the influence of the big pharma lobby. This tells me that they may be seeing a real threat to their bottom line.

Ah, gotcha. In that case, I agree with you. Big pharma lobby has good reason to worry, at least from a potential stand point. Nobody is really sure if stem cells are truly viable (adult stem cells). Embryonic stem cells are definitely viable, but it opens up all sorts of worm cans, ethically speaking.