Fight Aging!

I've noted the sorry state of affairs in Russia, insofar as disreputable stem cell medicine goes, in the past. Andrew Lynch recently pointed me to a BBC article on that topic - little change, it seems.

Dr Ramil Khabriev, the head of Russia's Public Health Agency, is alarmed by the rapid growth in their use in Russia because they could have serious side effects.

"It's not only me, many scientists around the world are worried, because nobody knows what the consequences of using stem cells are," he says.

"The aim is to inject the cells into your body where they transform into any type of cell you need.

"But they could cause cancer. There's a very big risk of that."

The article covers obviously fraudulent - and quite probably dangerous - beauty salons as well as medical organizations that are engaged in more responsible work. It's a great pity that so much of this activity in Russian, China and elsewhere in the world is conducted without producing data that could help advance the first generation of stem cell research - but such is the way things go.

While folk certainly should have the right to choose their own risks and expenditures in life, in health as for everything else, it would seem wise to wait for stem cell science and the development of regenerative medicine to advance - if you are in a position to do so.

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