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com 29 Aut i sm| eye I ssue 13 2014

am a special education teacher and
yet I dont believe I even asked. The
clinic explained their method would
help send stem cells into the body
and that those cells would navigate
to the most damaged parts of the
body first. Then they would do
their magic and continue for up to
a year.
This mothers experience is
shocking because it actually
matters greatly what kind of stem
cells are used, how donor and
recipient are matched, how the
cells are examined and treated to
ensure the right type and number
are used, and where they are
injected. They do not magically
navigate to damaged parts of the
body (and there is no reason to
believe that people with autism
have damage requiring repair).
Lifelong impact
If a stem cell transplant works, the
cells effectively become part of
the patients body and can have a
lifelong impact for good, or for
harm. Finally, although scientists
are hopeful, it is not certain that
cord blood can generate nerve
stem cells
1
. As autism is a
neurological disorder or
difference, this would be
necessary for a hypothetical stem
cell treatment to work.
There are also many known
risks in the use of umbilical cord
stem cells, particularly those that
are from other people
2
. If a clinic
denies this basic fact, one must
worry about its other claims.
I cannot comment on whether
progress this mum says her child
has experienced had any
relationship to stem cell treatment,
as she says that the family also
made many other changes
(including sending their son to a
new specialist school and
stopping two prescriptions for
psychoactive medication).
Children with autism learn and
grow, just like other children, and it
is hard to know which interventions
are most helpful. Without medical
testing, one cannot even know if
her son received real stem cells or
a sham treatment.
Indeed, so questionable is the
whole practice of stem cell therapy
on children with autism one cannot
say whether this mother, who
Research
Stemming
the tide
Stem cell research is without
doubt one of the most exciting
areas in medicine today but
does it have anything to offer
people with autism? You might
think so if youve seen tabloid
news stories and internet posts
about parents desperate to get
it for their child.
In reality, stem cell research is
still in its infancy. The few
approved human treatments
based on it are last-ditch, life-
saving efforts, the best-known
being bone-marrow transplantation
for leukaemia. These procedures
carry significant risks, especially if
another persons (allogeneic) stem
cells are used, instead of ones
own (autologous) stem cells.
So lets be clear: there is no
approved stem cell treatment for
autism. A very few small clinical
Yet when it comes to helping people
with autism, that is exactly what
almost all families who have sought
stem cell treatments have done.
A mothers story
Autism Eye made contact with one
mother (who cannot be named for
legal reasons) to hear at first-hand
a parents experiences of stem cell
therapy. Mum to a relatively high-
functioning child with an autism
spectrum diagnosis, she says she
has twice brought him to a clinic in
Panama for stem cell treatments.
The clinic said her son would
receive allogeneic stem cells
derived from umbilical cord blood,
and that there were no known risks
to the process.
She describes what she was told
about the technique: The clinic did
not address the causes of autism. I
The clinic
explained their
method would help
send stem cells into
the body ... then they
would do their magic
The internet is awash
with stories about stem
cell treatments being the
new big cure for autism.
However, Dr Mitzi Waltz
warns that there is a
lack of research and for
parents it could turn out
to be a very costly con
Science in its
infancy: a stem
cell, shown
alongside a
neuron
encouraged to become the right
kind of healthy cells. It isnt a case
of simply extracting them from one
part of a body and injecting them
into another: stem cell therapies
are complex, highly technical and
crucially experimental and
highly risky.
This is not something you would
want to trust to a clinician who
works in a hotel room, your home
or an unregulated overseas clinic.
trials have recently been carried
out, but even these have drawn
strong criticism. They have even
being accused of being covers
for marketing unproven treatments.
Their results cannot be relied upon.
Exciting potential
The potential of stem cells is
exciting because they are
undifferentiated. Theoretically, with
the right stimulus, they can turn
into any kind of specialised cells
that the body needs: bone, skin,
blood vessels, neural tissues and
so on. They can be derived from
bone marrow, umbilical cord
blood, peripheral blood and human
embryos, among other sources.
In effective stem cell
treatments, specially selected and
treated stem cells are introduced
to damaged tissues and carefully
30 www.autismeye.com Aut i sm| eye I ssue 13 2014 www.autismeye.com 31 Aut i sm| eye I ssue 13 2014
Research
made contact via email, and her
son are real people. Sadly, the
costlier the con, the more elaborate
the measures health fraudsters
may use. These could range from
writing fake reviews to concocting
false profiles of happy patients,
whose stories are shared through
mailing lists, internet forums and
social media. The stories serve as
unverifiable but compelling
marketing tools.
What I can say is that the clinic
she said she took her son to moved
to Panama from neighbouring
Costa Rica around three years
ago, after the Costa Rican Health
Ministry decided there was no
evidence that the treatments it
advertised worked or were safe
3
.
Stem cell cautions
Paul Knoepfler, associate professor
in the Department of Cell Biology
and Human Anatomy at the
REFERENCES
1
EuroStemCell (2012): Cord blood stem cells: Current uses and future challenges.
Online at: www.eurostemcell.org/factsheet/cord-blood-stem-cells-current-uses-and-future-challenges
2
National Cord Blood Program (2013): Comparison between bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells and cord blood donated for
transplantation. Online at: www.nationalcordbloodprogram.org/qa/comparison.html
3
Leslie Joseph (2010): Costa Rica puts brakes on popular stem cell tourism, Reuters, 7 June.
Online at: http://in.reuters.com/article/2010/06/07/idINIndia-49088520100607
I see stem cell
clinics with a
shocking level of
naivety about autism
spectrum disorder,
including viewing it as
one simple type of
condition
University of California, Davis
School of Medicine, is a world-
renowned stem cell expert.
He sums up the situation
clearly: There is no solid science
to back up this as a way to help
your child or patient. To be more
blunt, if you go this route, the child
quite literally becomes the subject
of a for-profit experiment.
Knoepfler adds that clinics
selling stem cell treatments
generally lack training or expertise
in autism or stem cells. When
used by relatively untrained
providers in a for-profit setting,
there are a number of risks,
including cancer, infection,
pulmonary embolism (blood clots
in the lung, where intravenously
injected stem cells tend to get
filtered out), and immune
reactions, just to name a few.
Stem cell clinics tend not to
do proper follow-up on patients
as well, which boosts risks,
he notes, especially if you
travel overseas.
I see stem cell clinics with a
shocking level of naivety about
autism spectrum disorder,
including viewing it as one simple
type of condition, Knoepfler says.
Slick, professional websites,
promotional brochures and
marketing campaigns have been
produced by companies that see
stem cells as a lure for desperate
patients. However, making your
business look good is not the
same as giving medically and
ethically sound advice and
treatment. Patients with conditions
ranging from Lou Gehrigs disease
to spinal cord injury have
succumbed to some very
accomplished con men, parting
with huge sums of money for
treatments that were either
elaborate shams, or dangerous.
Parents need to be sure that
their autistic child is not just a
new target for these cynical,
serial perpetrators.
New science:
cameras mark
the arrival of
stem cells in
Granada, Spain
RESOURCES
Parents may wish to view the
TV series 60 Minutes story
Stem Cell Fraud:
www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ovPZkQYee8Y
For factual information, see
EuroStemCells information
centre: www.eurostemcell.org/
stem-cell-resources
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