Stem Scandal
Rabbits for cages
Its 47-year-old director Vadim Kursenko is suspected of illegal use of stem cells. According to investigators, without a license for biotechnological medical care, the doctor injected stem cells of unknown origin to two hundred patients in three years, earning 22 million rubles on this fashionable procedure.
Pricked – and went!Law enforcement agencies became interested in the activities of Dr. Kursenko back in 2008, when a letter came from Roszdravnadzor to the Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Tatarstan with a request to find out why the clinic uses stem cells without having the appropriate permission.
Then the doctor got off with a warning and a fine, while he did not even think about giving up the use of stem cells in medical practice. On the website of his clinic, Vadim Kursenko is urging people to throw out medications prescribed by other doctors and inject themselves with stem cells. "A single injection of a cellular drug eliminates exacerbations and the need to go to hospitals, and this goes against the interests of pharmaceutical companies," the doctor convinces a potential patient with multiple sclerosis. – Their goal is to sell medicines, where you will be a consumer. They do not have a goal – to heal."
Unlike self-serving pharmacists, the good Dr. Kursenko promises to cure his patients with stem cells for "only" 227 thousand rubles, and not only from multiple sclerosis. An announcement has been posted on the Bioclinic website that since this year the institution has started treating patients with coronary heart disease and post-infarction patients with cell therapy.
To a participant of an Internet forum who is interested in where a private clinic receives a cellular drug (only large medical research institutions are allowed to create banks of stem material. - E.M.), Dr. Kursenko explains that the drug comes from the laboratory of cellular Technologies of the Russian State Medical University. "The cells there are very good and the effect is obvious. I consider the use of stem cells grown from the bone marrow of an adult (the patient himself) ineffective in comparison with young cells from the umbilical cord of a newborn."
The brain must be fresh!As found out by "Intertat.
<url>", there is indeed a department of cell biology and technology at RSMU, and the individual entrepreneur Kursenko has indeed concluded some agreements with the Moscow university on "joint scientific research in the field of cell technologies", but the documents do not talk about clinical practice. And the permission of Roszdravnadzor posted on the Bioclinic website for the use of a new medical technology related to the receipt, transportation and storage of human placenta cells, if you read it carefully, was issued to another organization altogether – the Moscow Phlebology Center CJSC.
– We are now finding out where Kursenko actually received stem cells for injection, – says Ildar Galiullin, an investigator of the SU TFR department for the city of Naberezhnye Chelny. – Many of his former patients say that the treatment did not help them. Many are no longer alive. However, this does not mean anything yet. After all, hopeless patients came to the clinic, to whom the injection of stem cells seemed to be the last chance for salvation.
By the way, it would be nice for the competent authorities to study more closely other methods of treatment that Dr. Kursenko uses. He discusses the possibilities of "quantum magic" with some of the patients on the website, recommends a cocktail of fresh pork brain to someone... "Take only fresh brain!" the doctor emphasizes.
Rabbits for cagesIt should be noted that today Russian legislation allows taking, growing and using human stem cells only within the framework of laboratory and clinical studies.
The bill regulating technologies and standards for the use of cell therapy in the treatment of various diseases has been "walking" in the State Duma for several years. His opponents refer to the fact that the effect of stem cells on human health has not yet been fully studied. Nevertheless, the Internet has long been full of tempting offers to make a miracle injection and get 10 years younger at a time. And many are ready to become guinea pigs… After the actors Anna Samokhina, Lyubov Polishchuk, Oleg Yankovsky and Alexander Abdulov died of cancer one after another, their colleague Stanislav Sadalsky told reporters that they all underwent a stem cell rejuvenation procedure.
There are many such stories of miraculous healing on the Bioclinic website
– When it comes to people's lives, a doctor does not have the right to apply a new, not fully studied method of treatment in fragments, at his discretion, – says Hrayr Kundakchyan, executive director of the stem cell Bank at Kazan State Medical University. – We need legalized standards, where all the main stages would be prescribed step by step. Our bank has permits for the transfer of cellular material to the RCB – for its use in clinical trials. But patients who agree to participate in such a study do not pay a penny for the procedure, all this is done with budget money. At the same time, no one guarantees the success of patients.
The Duma is still thinkingCoincidentally, yesterday the State Duma of the Russian Federation once again discussed the prospects for the use of cellular technologies in medicine.
One of the participants of the "round table" was the head of the stem cell bank of KSMU Andrey Kiyasov. If we discard scientific terminology, the conclusion of experts is as follows: in the field of application of cellular products and technologies, a real mess now reigns. In this regard, at the Duma "round table" it was decided to finalize the law "On the turnover of biomedical cell products" as soon as possible, which should ensure, on the one hand, freedom of scientific research, on the other – strict control over the use of new techniques with unproven efficacy and safety and protection of the patient from any abuse by money-hungry doctors.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru27.04.2012