Why Clinics Providing Stem Cell Therapies not Approved by the FDA Are Creating Growing Concern

Stem cell therapies represent an area of great promise for treating intractable eye diseases, but there’s growing concern about clinics that promote costly stem cell treatments that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and have not been proven to be safe or effective. This is already a multi-billion business and researchers have found some disturbing practices that have resulted into harm to patients. We spoke to Ajay Kuriyan, assistant professor at the Flaum Eye Institute and University of Rochester Medical Center, about his research into these clinics, how they sometimes disguise their work as legitimate clinical trials, and why this represents a threat not only patients, but this emerging therapeutic area.